


V 


Book 


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GopigM?. 




— ~T *"1 

Class. 1 — I 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


















































































“DUTCHY GRASPED THE SIGNAL ROPE AND THE BUOY 


STARTED ON ITS SHOREWARD JOURNEY.” 


- 



I 


BOYS OF 
EASTMARSH 


1 

/<57f 


BY 

FISHER AMES, JR. 


ILLUSTRATED BY 
CHARLES COPELAND 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


y'l- 'I 
As '* 1 



SEP -8 1914 


Copyright. 1914 , 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 


Published September 1914 



© Cl. A 3 7 9 4 0 2 


DEDICATED TO THE 

PUBLIC SCHOOL BOYS 


OF AMERICA 


\ 


I 


CONTENTS 


chapter page 

I. The Stolen Decoys 1 

II. An Adventure on the Outer Bar . . 18 

III. A Rough-house Football Game . . 33 

IV. A Race with the Bloodsaws ... 50 

V. Good-by to Athletics 65 

VI. A Stiff Fight 78 

VII. Time and Tide do not Wait ... 92 

VIII. A Night Swim for Life 107 

IX. The Wreck on Blackfish .... 123 

X. Baseball Coaching by the Hired Man 137 

XI. The Voyage of “The Skate” . . .154 

XII. The Japanese Weather Vane . . . 169 

XII. Assault and Robbery 185 

XIV. The Man Hunt 199 

XV. The Wreck of the Dirigible . . .212 

XVI. The Fight at Muskrat Hole . . . 222 

XVII. The End of the Hunt 235 

XVIII. The Hockey Game 249 

XIX. Pedro Captured 262 

XX. The Honor Corps Established . . 275 





ILLUSTRATIONS 


Drawings by Charles Copeland 

“Dutchy jerked the signal rope and the buoy started 
forward on its shoreward journey” 
(Page 135) Frontispiece 

PAGE 

“They had hardly gained the sand when a cry 

struck upon their ears” 14 

“Look here, Griscom,” he said, “I’ve just got out of 

a pothole on the marsh” 31 

“But as Miller swerved, he gave one of his spectacu- 
lar leaps” 37 

“I’ll burn you up if you move an inch nearer!” . 64 

“Two fat black ducks collapsed and fell with a 

splash” 94 

“The roof cracked with a sharp sound, and an 

avalanche of foamy water roared down” . . 114 

“Time’s up, fellows,” he cried. “If you resent the 

law, the law’ll have to use force” .... 233 



BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


CHAPTER I 

THE STOLEN DECOYS 

“Father says it’s going to be a very cold 
winter, the corn husks are so stout,” remarked 
Gershom, as he fastened an old car coupling- 
pin to one end of the duck line. “That means 
that the red-leggers will come thick and early.” 

“Well, I guess we’ll be as ready for them 
as any one on the bay,” replied Bill Tutt, 
with a note of pride in his voice. “Beauties, 
aren’t they?” 

Gershom looked up and across the strip of 
gray sand to where the flock guttered placidly 
in the shore shallows. 

“They’re all A 1,” he said. “They’ll do 
their share toward sending us to the Academy 
next year, I guess.” 

There were no live decoys along the bay- 
1 


2 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


side, or at any of the big shooting stands on 
Ely Island either, that could stand compari- 
son with the flock at which the boys were 
gazing. Some wild wing-tipped migrants 
had formed the nucleus in the beginning and 
these had been judiciously crossed with do- 
mestic stock, producing fowl more tractable 
and less gun-shy, but still true in shape, voice, 
and markings. 

The boys’ perseverance and skill in training 
them was really remarkable. The callers, an 
even dozen in number, seemed to play the 
game with as much zest as their owners and 
thoroughly to enjoy beguiling their free kin 
down within reach of the guns. The eight 
fliers, whose duty it was to circle about the 
blind until their efforts attracted the atten- 
tion of the wild birds, were the admiration of 
every sportsman who had seen them at work. 
The boys had received many liberal offers for 
the flock, but they considered that the regular 
revenue brought in every season by the de- 
coys was worth more than a lump sum down, 
and besides it would take a long time to build 
up another flock even half as good. 

One of the most persistent of the would-be 


THE STOLEN DECOYS 


3 


purchasers was old Manuel Bloodsaw, a 
“Portugee nigger,” as the people of East- 
marsh called him. The Bloodsaw farm was 
on the southern curve of the bay, about two 
miles from the Foy place as the gull flies. 
Manuel was a keen gunner, and at one time 
had been employed as caretaker of a large 
stand on Ely Island. He bred decoys for 
sale, and his birds were always good ones 
though they had never reached the perfection 
of the flock raised by Gershom Foy and Bill 
Tutt. 

-^Ls the boys sat on the little platform of the 
duck house, overhauling the lines, — it was Sep- 
tember and a few weeks more would see the 
shooting season in full blast, — Manuel drove 
into the yard and across the gray-mossed pas- 
ture to the shore. He halted his pony close 
to the duck house and gazed at the flock 
through narrowed eyelids. The sun glinted 
on their sleek, well-turned heads and the pur- 
plish iridescent bars on the drakes’ wings ; they 
certainly made an attractive sight for any one 
with a fancier’s eye. 

‘‘This fine day/’ remarked Manuel, pres- 
ently. 


4 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“Um-m,” said Bill. He knew what the 
“Portugee nigger” wasafter and had no mind 
to help him out. 

“I drive out here to make you one last 
offer,” added Manuel, coming to the point. 
“This year no good for birds. He’ll be cold 
this winter; all froze up tight and all duck go 
south quick.” 

“That’s the way it’s going to be, is it?” said 
Gershom, exchanging a grin with Bill Tutt. 

“Yas, you don’t need all those duck. 
Grain’s high this year. Don’t pay to keep 
’em when no shooting.” He threw his whip 
to his shoulder and swept the tip of it across 
the sky, like a gunner trying to lead a fast- 
flying bird. 

“Well,” said Bill, smiling, “if you can af- 
ford to keep them I guess Gersh and I’ll run 
the chance. No, ’tain’t any use, Manuel. 
We won’t sell.” 

“We wouldn’t part with those ducks if you 
went down on your knees to us with both hands 
full of money,” said Gershom. “We’ve got 
the best birds in the bay and we’re going to 
keep ’em.” 

Manuel turned and looked at Gershom. 


THE STOLEN DECOYS 


5 


The Portuguese had gold earrings in his ears 
and as he moved his head they swung glitter- 
ingly against the creased brown of his neck. 
They did not seem to glitter a bit more than 
his eyes, which had the bright, hard look of 
bits of glass. 

“Ah, you one joker,” he said. “Ver’ funny.” 
For a moment the white, even edges of his 
teeth gleamed under his thick lip. He tapped 
the breast of his soiled flannel shirt lightly. 

“You think I get down on my knees to you! 
Huh!” He spat abruptly over the wheel of 
the cart. Then, with a parting glance of dis- 
gust at the boys he gathered up the reins. 

At that moment old Zulu, Gershom’s pet 
crow, came sailing down from the barn. As 
soon as he saw Manuel he opened his black 
beak and let out a string of raucous “caws.” 
It was his way of informing strangers that he 
disliked them, and he did it invariably. In 
fact, Zulu was a capital “watch dog.” 

The Portuguese looked up at the dusky 
creature as it flew over his head. 

“Ah!” he exclaimed with assumed interest. 
“This one of your ducks, eh? He’s fine 
caller. You train him, eh? Ha, ha, ha!” 


6 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“I suppose that was meant to be insulting,” 
said Gershom, as he watched Manuel jogging 
up the road. “But I can’t see it. It’s time 
that Portugee got it through his thick head 
that he can’t do any business with us.” 

“I guess Manuel’s right in his weather 
prophecy,” remarked Bill. “He’s got a rep- 
utation for accuracy in that line, you 
know.” 

“Gab Andrews says he knows it’s going to 
be a bad winter because he’s heard those queer 
noises come out of the sea the way they did 
back in ’68,” said Gershom. 

“What kind of noises?” asked Tutt. 

“Well, he says they aren’t just like the 
‘rut,’ but something like it. Sort of sudden 
loud sounds as if something big had risen up 
from the bottom of the sea and blown out all 
its breath at once.” 

“Oh, piffle! Old Gab is so deaf he couldn’t 
hear a whale spout under his window. I’ll 
bet we have a good gunning season in spite of 
his dreams. I must pike along now, Gersh. 
I’ll meet you here to-morrow after school.” 

“Sure thing,” said Gershom. “We must 
get these anchor lines all straightened out. 


THE STOLEN DECOYS 7 

There are some native ducks tending in the 
bay already/’ 

The boys separated in the farmyard, Tutt 
departing for his home a few hundred yards 
up the street, while Gershom went into the 
barn to assist Charlie Hatch, the hired man, 
do the chores. After he had given the hens 
their five o’clock meal and put down hay and 
water for the two cows, he went into the house 
for half an hour’s study before the supper his 
mother was already preparing. 

At six o’clock Charlie Hatch came in and 
sat down at his own private table in a corner 
of the kitchen. Gershom, who had been 
studying there because the kitchen was warm 
and cozy, began to gather up his books. 
Hatch picked up the pale green arithmetic and 
turned the pages thoughtfully. 

“I knew this fellow by his color right off,” 
he remarked. “It’s the same old green they 
used in my time. I was a shark on mathe- 
matics, but English composition had me fan- 
ning every time.” 

Hatch was a recent institution at the Foy 
farm and no one knew anything about his an- 
tecedents, though some of his habits had be- 


8 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

come pretty obvious. He was a quick, 
strong, and intelligent worker when sober, but 
about once a month he went on a debauch that 
lasted several days, when, as Mr. Foy re- 
marked, he did his level best to drink East- 
marsh as dry as a desert. As he was careful 
to keep away from the farm and had never 
proved himself quarrelsome or mischievous in 
his cups, Noah Foy contented himself with a 
dry rebuke when the repentant hired man 
turned up again. Labor was scarce in East- 
marsh and Hatch more than earned his pay. 
Mrs. Foy had secret hopes of reforming him, 
for she considered that any man who was kind 
to animals, was personally neat and a will- 
ing worker had the seeds of righteousness in 
him. 

“I’m not fond of English composition, my- 
self,” said Gershom, looking at the hand that 
held the green book. “Hullo, Hatch, where 
did you get the baseball finger?” 

“Eh? What? Oh, that!” Hatch laughed 
a little confusedly and laid down the book. 
“What makes you think it’s a baseball fin- 
ger?” 

“Well, I’ve seen enough of them to be 


THE STOLEN DECOYS 9 

pretty sure, and when you said ‘fanning/ I 
knew/’ 

“Quite a Sherlock Holmes, isn’t he!” 
laughed Noah Foy, but he looked at Hatch 
with shrewd, speculative eyes. 

“Oh, I’ve played, like most kids,” said the 
hired man. 

He turned the subject, but Gershom did 
not forget it. He had never happened to no- 
tice the finger before, but he had often ob- 
served that Hatch’s hands seemed very broad, 
and he had been struck by the man’s quickness 
and sureness and the deft, athletic way he 
handled himself. 

“If Hatch was ever a real ball-player, I’ll 
bet he was a good one,” he thought as he un- 
dressed that night. “I’ll get him to coach me 
up. If I can make the Academy team next 
year. I’ll die happy.” 

The next morning, however, a dismal dis- 
covery put the matter entirely out of Ger- 
shom’s head. When he went down to let out 
the decoys and feed them before going to 
school, he found them already bathing glee- 
fully in the water which was close about the 
house. The sliding door was raised and fas- 


10 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


tened by its pin. Gershom could have sworn 
that he had closed it the night before. Vague- 
ly uneasy, he counted the flock; there were 
only eighteen of them. Two of the callers 
were missing. 

Gershom opened the hinged window of the 
duck house and looked inside. They were not 
there. There was no blood upon the boards 
and no sign of any unusual disturbance hav- 
ing occurred. With the exception of the 
raised slide, the place was as he had left it the 
night before. 

Gershom arrived late at school and had no 
chance to speak to Tutt until recess, when, in 
the presence of Ed Blair and Harry Eorbes, 
he broke the bad news. Tutt was grieved and 
wrathful. 

“By heck!” he exclaimed. “Do you sup- 
pose they strayed? It isn’t likely the callers 
would, for they’re all wing-tipped, and be- 
sides none of them ever did before. Are you 
sure you shut the slide?” 

“I’m positive I did.” 

“I’d be ready to swear I saw you,” said 
Bill, “but you say it was open and held up 
by the pin! Now if some one had pinched 


THE STOLEN DECOYS 


11 


those ducks, he’d have shut the slide, it seems 
to me; and wouldn’t he have taken more than 
two?” 

“You must have left the slide up,” said Ed 
Blair. “Some mink or skunk or cat was the 
thief.” 

“They would have left some signs of their 
work,” said Gershom. “There wasn’t a drop 
of blood or a loose feather in the house, except 
the two or three the ducks always pick out at 
night.” 

“I’ll come over this afternoon and we’ll look 
around,” said Bill, as the gong rang, summon- 
ing them back to the school room. 

He appeared at the duck house as soon as 
he had eaten dinner, and together with Ger- 
shom went over the ground carefully. The 
tide had dropped and the beach, whose gray 
sand was pricked in places by short, wiry salt 
grass, was a good medium for retaining spoor. 
They soon found a clew which the flood tide of 
the morning had hidden from Gershom. This 
was a series of round depressions in the firm 
sand leading from the lip of the water straight 
to the duck house. 

“It isn’t cloven, so it isn’t a cow; and it’s 


12 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


too small for a horse,’’ exclaimed Bill. “Be- 
sides, neither of them are particularly fond of 
duck meat. What on earth could have made 
it?” 

“I don’t know,” replied Gershom, “but I 
think we’d better camp out to-night in the 
boat shed.” 

“I’ll come over after supper and bring my 
gun,” said Tutt. 

When he had finished his chores Gershom 
carried two heaping armfuls of hay to the boat 
shed, and his mother let him have a thick red 
army blanket. The evening had a chill fore- 
taste of winter in it, and when Tutt arrived 
a thin fog was rolling in from the bay. 

“Don’t you boys want to take the kitchen 
stove along?” joked Mr. Foy. “I guess 
Mother can spare it till morning.” 

“You’d better take Brier,” suggested Char- 
lie Hatch, referring to the powerful Airedale 
comfortably stretched on a rug in the living 
room. Gershom, who had ignored the offer of 
the kitchen stove, shook his head at this. 

“Brier might whine or bark and give us 
away,” he said. “I think I will take Zulu, 
though. He’ll keep as mum as a clam unless 
something comes prowling around.” 


THE STOLEN DECOYS 


13 


As soon as they arrived at the duck house 
Gershom lowered the slide and tethered the in- 
dignant crow to the ridge pole. Then he and 
Tutt ensconced themselves on the piled hay in 
the boat shed, whose single window, partially 
raised, admitted more than was pleasant of 
the damp night air. 

For a time they conversed in whispers, but 
by and by they snuggled down into the hay 
and drawing the blanket over them lay in 
drowsy silence. The rising wind started a 
gamut of weird sounds in the rickety old shed. 
Outside the water lapped and fretted softly 
at the sand, and as the tide rose the slow waves 
ran up the beach and retreated with long, lazy 
hisses that were very soothing. Hour suc- 
ceeded hour and the boys’ naps began to grow 
longer and sounder. 

Then like a cry of ill omen old Zulu lifted 
up his harsh voice. 

“Wake up!” cried Gershom. “It’s come!” 

There was no hesitation about Bill’s move- 
ments. He was at the door almost before he 
was awake, his gun in his hand, and in less 
time than it takes to tell it he was running 
swiftly towards the duck house. Gershom 
followed him instantly. 


14 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


It was so dark that he staggered as he ran, 
and suddenly he bumped violently into some 
object which he did not perceive until it was 
too late. It was Bill, who had stopped short. 
Gershom felt that his whole body was rigid. 

“Look at it, Gersh! Look at it!” he cried, 
pointing. 

Something misshapen and black was mov- 
ing in the mist at the edge of the bay. There 
was a splash, then the sound of something 
swishing through the water. The vapor and 
the darkness had swallowed up the creature. 

“Fire!” cried Gershom. 

The boom of Bill’s gun started Zulu off 
again, but no sound came from the water. It 
was a long shot, and as Bill afterwards con- 
fessed, the muzzle of the gun was not as steady 
as it might have been. 

The report, however, was tonic to their 
nerves, and when Bill had slipped in another 
cartridge they started toward the beach. 

They had hardly gained the sand when a 
cry struck upon their ears. It came from the 
bay, and muffled as it was it rang full of ter- 
ror. 

“That’s no animal,” exclaimed Gershom. 
“Listen!” 



“THEY HAD HARDLY GAINED THE SAND WHEN A CRY STRUCK 

UPON THEIR EARS.” 









































































































































THE STOLEN DECOYS 


15 


The cry came again. 

“It’s a man,” said Bill. 

He dropped his gun and began to fumble 
with his shoestrings. “Come on, Gersh,” he 
added. “Thief or no thief, we can’t let him 
drown.” 

Stripped of the bulkier part of their cloth- 
ing, they waded into the chill water and struck 
out in the direction whence the sounds had 
come. The cries had ceased, but as the boys 
drew well away from the shore they heard a 
muffled splashing. The blanket of fog hid 
everything, and soon the splashing died down. 
A puff of night air lifted the edge of the va- 
por for a moment, and before it sank again 
they saw something dark and long stealing 
silently off. 

“It’s a boat,” exclaimed Gershom. “Ugh! 
What fools we’ve been.” 

“What’s that thing?” said Tutt. 

He made a few long strokes and came up 
to the object, or objects, for there were two 
of them floating on the water. 

“Stilts!” exclaimed Tutt. “But they are 
odd-looking things. Here, take this one, 
Gersh.” 


16 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


They swam rapidly ashore and examined 
the queer sticks, which were nothing more nor 
less than a pair of short stilts with straps for 
the feet and circular pieces of boards nailed to 
the bottom ends. 

“That’s a pretty crafty scheme,” acknowl- 
edged Gershom, his teeth chattering. “With 
those on his feet there was no danger of his 
leaving a tell-tale mark.” 

“I don’t think he got away with any more 
birds,” said Tutt. “The slide’s down and fas- 
tened.” 

To make sure they opened a window and 
by the light of a match counted the flock. 
They were all there. 

“Whew! I’m frozen,” cried Tutt. “I 
can’t stand this any longer.” 

“Come up to the house and we’ll poke up 
the kitchen fire, and I’ll lend you some dry 
nightclothes and half a bed,” said Gershom. 

They released old Zulu and started for the 
house as hard as they could run, the crow fly- 
ing ahead of them. 

“Who do you suppose it was?” panted Tutt. 

“One of the Bloodsaws — perhaps old Man- 
uel himself,” said Gershom. “He got a 


THE STOLEN DECOYS 


17 


fright and a ducking for it anyway. I vote 
we make a scout around their place next Sat- 
urday, Bill.” 

“We’ll take Ed and Harry,” agreed Tutt. 
“I don’t fancy poking into that hornet’s nest 
single-handed. The Bloodsaws wouldn’t 
mind killing a fellow, I believe. Wow! but 
I’m cold.” 


CHAPTER II 


AN ADVENTURE ON THE OUTER BAR 

The Saturday expedition to the Bloodsaw 
place had to be postponed, since the Mud 
Hens could not muster in force. The town 
of Eastmarsh, so far as its boys were con- 
cerned, was divided into three hard and fast 
districts ; i. e ., the land lying west of the rail- 
road track, that which lay east of it, and a 
high, rolling, wooded section on the northwest. 
Three clubs represented and endeavored to 
maintain the supremacy of each district. The 
Mud Hens, to which Gershom belonged, held 
sway in the east along the shore and the creek- 
divided dunes; the west was truculently ruled 
by the Zulus ; and the northwest and hilly por- 
tion was more or less under the control of the 
Man Eaters, a migratory band of boys who 
attended the exclusive Eaton Preparatory, 
where the sons of rich men came to dabble in 

education. Holt’s corner, where the postof- 
18 


AN ADVENTURE ON THE OUTER BAR 19 


fice and stores clustered, the railway station, 
and the main road to the Academy with its 
yard were held neutral ground by common 
consent. At times the Mud Hens and the 
Zulus banded together in temporary brother- 
hood against the Man Eaters, but the latter 
always stood proudly alone. 

Henry Forbes was the only Mud Hen be- 
sides Gershom who was free and unfettered 
on that Saturday. Ed Blair had to go to the 
outer bar to help his father fix up the goose 
stand for the coming season. Tutt was 
wrathful because of an engagement with the 
woodpile, and all of the other larger boys were 
held at home by some duty or other. Un- 
like the youths of Eaton Preparatory, the 
boys of Eastmarsh were important factors in 
the social economy of their homes. Instead 
of receiving incomes, they contributed their 
share to the household funds either in the form 
of labor on the farm or hard cash when one 
was fortunate enough to secure a paying job, 
as in cranberry time or during the summer 
fishing season. 

Since the Bloodsaw trip was out of the 
question, Gershom decided to accompany Ed 


20 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


Blair to the outer bar. He had heard that a 
big flight of snipe had struck the marshes, and 
snipe were always in demand in the city, bring- 
ing much better prices than the shore birds. 

“Father saw some great whisps of them, but 
Gould has his cattle on the marsh now and 
it’s rather risky to cross them,” said Blair as 
they shoved the dory down the beach. 

“There are lots of little creeks and gullies 
that one can jump and the cattle can’t,” said 
Gershom. “Besides, I don’t believe they’ll 
prove very cranky.” 

He took his seat on the stern thwart and the 
dory shot smartly away under its four oars. 

“I’m afraid Eaton is going to lick us this 
fall,” said Ed. “She’s stronger than she was 
last year. Only two of the eleven were grad- 
uated and they were the poorest men on the 
team. They say they’ve got a great find in 
A1 Collingwood. He’s a natural-born plung- 
ing back, according to their account.” 

“Son of A. S. Collingwood, the Pittsburg 
steel magnate, isn’t he?” asked Gershom. 

“Yes. I wonder what it’s like to be the son 
of a magnate.” 

Gershom ruminated over this, his oars 


AN ADVENTURE ON THE OUTER BAR 21 


sweeping clean and true in the short, power- 
ful, salt-water stroke. 

“Pretty good, I guess,” he expounded at 
length. “Queer, isn’t it, the way things go? 
There’s no better man in the world than 
father and he works early and late, but if he 
lived to be two thousand he’d never be a mil- 
lionaire. Why is it that the man who raises 
food for the other fellows to eat never gets 
too much of it himself?” 

“I wish father would pay more attention to 
the farm and less to the goose stand,” Ed burst 
forth. 

“Doesn’t he make a pretty good thing of 
it?” said Gershom. “He’s the best gunner on 
the bay, we all know that.” 

“It pays something, perhaps; but father 
does it for the sport, and that’s the truth. 
Meanwhile the farm runs down for lack of 
care. I tell you, Gersh, I may give up all 
thoughts of the Academy. I’m needed at 
home to look after the place.” 

“I don’t believe it will be as bad as that,” 
comforted Gershom; but he knew that Mr. 
Blair would not give up his “goosing” readily. 
The condition of his farm, naturally a good 
one, was already a by-word in Eastmarsh. 


n 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


The dory reached the outer bar at last, and 
having anchored her the boys separated, Ed 
going southeast toward the sandy tip, while 
Gershom took the opposite direction. His 
goal was the great stretch of marsh that jutted 
out from the mainland toward the western end 
of the bar and formed the head of Eastmarsh 
harbor. 

Mr. Gould was a cattle king in a small way, 
although no one would have suspected it from 
the little tidy house and quarter-acre patch 
that comprised his home on the mainland. 
Here on the broad marshes was his real 
“farm,” a long, rickety-legged shack, with 
mile on mile of brackish swale land cut by tide- 
water creeks and ramparted high against the 
heavy batteries of the Atlantic by great bald, 
shining, shifting dunes. There was not a 
fence on the range. 

Gershom crossed the bridge over the creek 
between the bar and the marshes and put up 
the rails behind him. Deciding to work across 
to the mainland and then take the bay road 
home, he started on his hunt, his gun held in 
readiness to meet the rise of any snipe that 
might lie close. 


AN ADVENTURE ON THE OUTER BAR 23 


Before long he began to think that the walk 
would prove a monotonous form of exercise. 
Presently, however, from a patch of ooze fif- 
teen yards ahead, a snipe sprang up with a 
startling scaipe ! scaipe ! bored like a bullet into 
the wind, then turned and came racking di- 
rectly over Gershom’s head. 

He threw up his gun, fired, and sat down 
hard in the slime; but although somewhat dis- 
concerted, he kept his eyes glued to the zig- 
zagging bird. He had never fired at a snipe 
before and such lightning evolutions won his 
respect. His lips tightened when he saw it 
double suddenly on its course and return to the 
southward, pitching headlong to cover beyond 
a point of reeds some two hundred yards dis- 
tant. He would bag that longbill or quit the 
business. 

On the other side of the reedy point he came 
upon a little bunch of browsing cattle, — three 
cows and a staring-coated, thick- jointed 
heifer and a young bull. Three of them 
whisked their tails and jumped for the reeds, 
leaving the heifer and the young bull. The 
heifer did not seem to know what to do; but the 
bull knew well enough, and began to go 


24 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


through certain formalities that Gershom 
would have done well to heed. 

First he trotted forward a few paces, his 
tail upheld in a tense curve and his black muz- 
zle outstretched. Then he stopped and swung 
his head in a series of half circles, lowering it 
at every sweep. When his nose just grazed 
the ground he uttered a broken, coughing 
sound and launched himself, nimbly as a 
springing cat, straight at Gershom. 

Up to that moment the latter had given the 
bull only a cursory glance. Now he stood 
still and looked at him. He realized that if 
he and the little red beast should meet, the con- 
sequences would be unpleasant. He tucked 
his gun under his arm, quite forgetting it was 
a possible means of defense, and hopped into 
the reeds. It seemed only a few seconds later 
when a loud crackling and splashing rose at 
his heels. 

Really alarmed now he ran as hard as he 
could, throwing himself at the sea of reeds that 
half-upheld, half -retarded him. His feet 
slapped a quick tattoo on the hidden ooze. He 
stepped on a wobbly tussock, reeled from it to 
a little pool, plashed through the semi-viscid 


AN ADVENTURE ON THE OUTER BAR 25 


stuff in a shower of spray, and found himself 
on the brink of a wide, deep drain, whose un- 
healthy pinkish mud glistened as if varnished 
and seemed to leer up at him through irides- 
cent, eye-like bubbles. 

It was an unclean-looking sink, but the red 
bull was behind him, and he went off the edge 
like a frog. He struck with the sound of an 
exploding soda-water bottle and kept on sink- 
ing, through the rancid crust and deep into 
the pudding-like mud. Then something 
“whooshed” by him, and landed with an ex- 
plosive grunt and a spatter of slime. It was 
the little red bull. 

Gershom was rather amused at the plight 
into which he had drawn his pursuer, for the 
bull was bogged to its belly, as helpless as a 
fly on gummed paper. Then he discovered 
that he was trapped himself. The mud held 
him as if it were hot rubber. Wrench and pull 
and sway as he would, he was immovable from 
mid-thigh down. The color receded from his 
ruddy face in streaks. 

The little bull, born to the grim ways of the 
marsh, did not struggle as an inexperienced 
animal would have done. He knew that 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


would only cause him to sink deeper. Occa- 
sionally he lifted one of his shoulders and 
pulled slowly and evenly on the imprisoned leg; 
but Gershom, watching him anxiously, could 
not see that he gained anything. At each de- 
liberate effort his long tail stiffened sympa- 
thetically, and once the brush of it almost 
struck Gershom across the cheek, for he had 
fallen at an angle across the drain, with his 
stern toward the late object of his pursuit. 

That tail flashed in front of Gershom like 
a ray of hope. He watched for it, his fingers 
set like springs, his mind rigidly concentrated 
on every ripple of the red bulks skin. At the 
same time he was curiously conscious of a little 
brown bird swinging and singing light-heart- 
edly from a reed on the bank, of the stir of 
lace-like vapor high in the blue arch overhead, 
and the insistent odor of sulphur that rose from 
the mud. 

He was conscious, too, that he was settling 
deeper. It made him desperate, and he 
picked up handfuls of mud and threw them at 
the poor bull and reviled him. This startled 
him out of his despairing calm. His tail flew 
out as he strained dumbly to extricate himself, 


AN ADVENTURE ON THE OUTER BAR 27 


and as luck would have it Gershom caught the 
tail. 

He had learned from the red bull that it was 
best to go at the business quietly. Pulling 
strongly and evenly on the tail, he wriggled 
his feet until the pressure about them was some- 
what loosened. Then he bent over, cartridge 
vest in the mud, and wriggled and kicked 
downward, his hands inching up the tail, while 
the bull glared round at him with black, pro- 
truding eyes and muscles jumping with fear. 

All at once, with a kind of sticky sigh, his 
legs drew out of the rubber boots and Gershom 
went hand over hand along the tail, sliding on 
his stomach like a turtle. He crawled up over 
the bull’s hips, straddled his sharp back, and 
began to laugh hysterically. 

A shadow swept over him and he looked up, 
still grinning foolishly. A big, gray bird was 
wheeling close above him on tilting wings. 
Another was descending from the clouds in 
complaisant circles, and a third came slouching 
over the reeds. The catch-basins of the marsh 
were the birds’ friends. Anything that fell 
into them belonged to the gulls eventually. 
This thing evidently had not been in long 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


28 

enough, but the three birds could afford to 
wait awhile. 

Gershom, mopping his forehead, looked at 
the nearest bank. It was ten feet away — ten 
feet of shaking, bottomless ooze. He knew 
well what would happen to him if he set a 
stockinged foot on that. 

He thought hard and long. The sun 
burned a hot spot on the top of his head — his 
hat had fallen off — and the gulls cackled de- 
risively. Only ten feet! If he could balance 
himself upright for a moment and if only the 
bull’s back were not quite so sharp! When 
the solution came to him he rejected it at first, 
it seemed so simple. But his mind kept re- 
turning to it. It was the one definite piece of 
action that had suggested itself. 

He took off his coat, waistcoat, and flannel 
shirt and laid them neatly across the red bull’s 
spine. Then he reached out and pulling up 
his gun, which stuck upright in the mud like 
some old reed, he flung it on to the bank. He 
measured the distance to the bank with an anx- 
ious eye, and one by one tossed the various 
garments forth on the ooze. They formed 
wavering and insecure-looking stepping-stones 


AN ADVENTURE ON THE OUTER BAR 29 


for about halfway between the bull and the 
bank. He then rose unsteadily on the bull’s 
back, bent forward, and took the plunge! 

It was done in a dash and a mad slide, much 
as he had sometimes stolen second base in a 
ball game. At the finish his nose was jammed 
into the bank and his fingers hooked among 
the reeds. 

He was a piebald and evil-smelling figure 
when he crawled forth on the level of the 
marsh, but he had seldom felt happier. He 
was perfectly content to leave the khaki jacket 
and the rubber boots, but he felt much sym- 
pathy for the little red bull and he spoke to 
him comfortingly as he curried himself with 
handfuls of grass. 

“I forgive you, old chap,” he said. “I sup- 
pose you thought you were doing your duty.” 

The wiry marsh grass did not feel particu- 
larly comfortable to his stockinged feet, and 
without his jacket and flannel shirt Gershom 
felt rather chilly. All his desire to hunt snipe 
was extinguished and he cut across the marsh 
in as straight a line as he could make, keeping 
a wary eye on the bunch of grazing cattle. He 
breathed a sigh of relief when he climbed the 


30 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


woven wire fence at last and found himself on 
firm land. 

Though he was ashamed of his plight and 
wanted to sneak home unobserved, he went to 
the barn and told Mr. Gould about the mired 
bull, receiving little courtesy for his informa- 
tion. 

“If you pesky boys don’t keep off my land, 
I’ll have the law on you,” exclaimed the farmer. 
“Regular pests, every one of you!” 

Gershom did not wait to hear any more of 
Mr. Gould’s opinions. He hurried across the 
farmyard to the turnpike and struck out at a 
steady jogging trot for home, hoping that the 
road would be deserted; but just as his tired 
legs refused to hold the pace any longer a 
group of boys emerged from the wooded side, 
their well-cut clothes and a certain jauntiness 
of air proclaiming them to be Eatonites. Ger- 
shom’s filthy and scanty attire aroused a gust 
of derisive laughter. 

“It’s an escaped scarecrow,” said one boy. 

“No, it’s a Mud Hen. Can’t you see its na- 
tive element sticking to its plumage?” 

“It hasn’t much plumage. It’s molting, I 
guess.” 



CvrtzLWto - 


“‘LOOK HERE, GRISCOM,’ HE SAID. ‘I’VE JUST GOT OUT OF 
A POTHOLE ON THE MARSH.’” 










AN ADVENTURE ON THE OUTER BAR 31 

“Don’t get too near it. Observe the fire in 
its beady eye.” 

The group stretched out in a‘ line, barring 
Gershom’s progress and taunting him glee- 
fully. He recognized Griscom, Eaton’s foot- 
ball captain, a tall, powerfully built fellow in 
the most immaculate of gray English home- 
spuns, a gold society pin in his green four-in- 
hand. Gershom looked him straight in the 
face, ignoring the others. 

“Look here, Griscom,” he said, “I’ve just 
got out of a pothole on the marsh, where I lost 
most of my clothes. I wouldn’t squeal other- 
wise, but I’m about done up. I’m so cold my 
teeth are loose.” 

“Baby! Yah!” 

“There’s more mud than sand about him!” 

“Let’s give him a little by rolling him on the 
beach. It will tighten up those teeth of his, 
too.” 

The boys began to press closer to him, and 
one of them, a rangy-looking fellow with red 
hair and a hawk nose between his bright, 
dancing eyes, advanced with a lithe and threat- 
ening motion. 

“Let him alone, Al,” said Griscom, laying 


32 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


his hand on the other’s shoulder. “Don’t pick 
on a fellow who’s half frozen and so stuck up 
with mud he can’t use his hands. No, I won’t 
have it. You’ve got to postpone this scrap 
till things are more even.” 

The boy called A1 shook himself loose half 
fiercely, though he still smiled, but Griscom 
stepped squarely in front of him. 

“You heard me, didn’t you, Collingwood?” 
he said quietly, but his tone showed Gershom 
one reason why this tall fellow was the captain 
of Eaton’s eleven. “Now cut along, Mud 
Hen,” he added. “Hit the trail hard and 
warm yourself up.” 

The line parted and let Gershom pass. Shiv- 
ering with cold, he broke into his jog trot 
again. 

“So that’s the new find,” he said to himself. 
“He may be a natural-born plunging back, but 
I’ll bet he’ll never play any game through. 
He’s the kind they send to the side lines for 
slugging. That Griscom is a decent chap. 
He’ll play square every time, I know. I hope 
we lick them good and plenty.” 


CHAPTER III 


A ROUGH-HOUSE FOOTBALL GAME 

The Saturday sacred to the game between 
Eaton Preparatory and the Academy dawned 
with an almost cloudless sky and a light though 
cold wind from the northwest. Whatever it 
was to the confident and rather supercilious 
Preparatory boys, it was a pregnant day in the 
opinion of Eastmarsh. Before noon the roads 
running out into the surrounding country were 
dotted with all kinds of vehicles, from touring 
cars to queer odds and ends of carriages and 
wagons from the more remote farms. Horns 
and party cheers broke the stillness of the pitch 
pine woods as the travelers approached the 
Academy grounds, and excited young people 
with open lunch baskets on their knees waved 
flags and sandwiches with impartial enthusi- 
asm. When Gershom, Bill Tutt, and Ed 
Blair with other Mud Hens raced around the 
field to the west bleachers, they found a record 
crowd already in attendance. The Academy 

33 


34 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

eleven, looking husky in their dark blue jersies, 
were tossing a ball back and forth and going 
through other limbering-up exercises over by 
the south goal. The Preparatory barges had 
just driven on to the north end of the field, 
where they were being welcomed by those boys 
who had elected to walk. 

The ushers now began to clear the grounds 
and the umpire, Professor Chadwick of Eaton, 
and Mr. Porter of Bayside, the referee, ran 
out to the center, accompanied by the oppos- 
ing captains. As the light wind blew directly 
over the field, one goal was as good as the 
other. Griscom, who won the toss, lined up 
his men before the north posts, and as the ref- 
eree’s whistle sounded Hall, the Preparatory 
quarter and the best punter on his side, trotted 
swiftly forward and drove the ball well into 
his opponents’ territory. The game was on. 

In point of weight the dark blue Academy 
team showed somewhat heavier than the yel- 
low and black Preparatories, but the advan- 
tage in their favor ended there. During the 
scrimmages in which they rushed the ball fif- 
teen yards and then lost it on three downs there 
was no lack of determination and aggressive- 


A ROUGH-HOUSE FOOTBALL GAME 35 


ness, but it was evident that their team work 
was not as consistent as that of their oppo- 
nents. The cooperation of the yellow and 
blacks had the smooth finish of a piece of well- 
oiled machinery. They seemed to get there 
without effort and their tackling was accurate 
and highly effective. Yet they displayed no 
particular desire to attack. Opposing an al- 
most invincible defense against the Academy’s 
rushes, they generally punted the ball when 
they received it on downs. 

“They are playing a waiting game,” ex- 
claimed Gershom. “When they think our fel- 
lows are tuckered out they’ll change their 
style.” 

This, together with the snap and prettiness 
of their team work, looked bad. Harry 
Forbes, whom everybody knew w r ould easily 
take his place on the Academy team next year, 
began to crack his big finger joints nervously. 

“Oh, if we only had a decent punter,” he 
groaned. “Can’t Osborn see what they’re 
about, the blockhead?” 

Then all the Mud Hens and everybody else 
on the bleachers on the west side rose in a roar 
of sound, with waving hats, flags, and hand- 


36 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


kerchiefs, for Miller, left halfback of the Acad- 
emy, had broken through Eaton’s stone wall 
and was off down the field. In front of him 
were the three Eaton backs, Griscom at left 
and the new wonder, Collingwood, at right, 
while behind them was the tall, experienced 
fullback, Jaynes. 

Miller was the hurdling rather than the 
bucking type of halfback, and though not or- 
dinarily successful at piercing the line he was 
great on round-the-end plays and threading 
a broken field. This time he had managed to 
dash between Eaton’s right guard and tackle 
and outstripping his interference looked good 
to make one of the long runs for which he was 
famous. 

“Hi, Hi, Ak, Ak, Ak, Academy,” howled 
the west stand, while the eastern bleachers 
showed black and motionless in gloomy sus- 
pense. Down the field rushed Miller, appar- 
ently straight at the poised, crouching captain 
of the Preparatories, but when only a few feet 
separated them and everybody expected that 
Griscom would make one of his hard tackles, 
Miller swerved to the left like a flash of light. 
This of itself would not have saved him, for 



“BUT AS MILLER SWERVED, HE GAVE ONE OF HIS 
SPECTACULAR LEAPS.” 


•Ujh 



A ROUGH-HOUSE FOOTBALL GAME 37 


the wily Griscom divined the movement and 
lunged with almost equal quickness. But as 
Miller swerved, he gave one of his spectacular 
leaps and GrisconTs strong arms instead of 
grasping a pair of dark blue legs clutched 
nothing but the empty air. As the captain of 
the Preparatory struck the ground and rolled 
over like a shot rabbit with the force of his fly- 
ing tackle, even the east stand rose and cheered 
Miller’s wonderful cleverness. A profound 
silence succeeded the uproar as they watched 
Jaynes and Collingwood, fiercely eager to re- 
trieve their captain’s defeat, come rushing to- 
ward the Academy back. Every one saw that 
they were guilty of an error of judgment. 
Jaynes at least should have kept back until 
Collingwood made or lost his tackle. But the 
unexpectedness of the play and the trick Miller 
had played on Griscom had quite deprived 
Jaynes of his usual coolness. In fact, it was 
Collingwood who suddenly began to check him- 
self. He saw Jaynes racing from his post 
and let him pass him. And it was well for 
Eaton that he did. 

Jaynes rushed on like a young bull. It was 
exactly the sort of maneuver best calculated 


38 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


to please the wily Miller, and he avoided him 
with such ease that again a hysterical tumult 
arose from the west bleachers. Only Colling- 
wood was left to bar the way to the goal so 
nearly won. The school’s new halfback 
against the seasoned Academy player! But 
A1 Collingwood was in truth a real “find.” 
Report had not exaggerated his fiery ability, 
and quite as confident as if he had the whole of 
the Eaton team behind him, he went to the 
rescue of his school’s prestige. 

Miller had now met an opponent he could 
not fool or shake off. He swerved trickily, 
but Collingwood was on him. Then Miller 
tried another desperate hurdle, but Colling- 
wood made a high flying tackle and caught one 
of the blue ankles in a grip of steel. Both 
staggered and fell, but both were on their feet 
again in an instant. Collingwood was the 
quicker. This time his arms caught Miller 
just below the hips and downed the Academy 
back heavily. Then, in what seemed an ex- 
hibition of wanton violence, he threw himself 
on the prostrate boy and ground his face in the 
turf, while his knees dug viciously into the 
small of Miller’s back. 


A ROUGH-HOUSE FOOTBALL GAME 39 


“Foul! Foul! The dirty mucker!” shouted 
Gershom. 

The spectators at that end of the bleachers 
rose en masse, shouting their disapproval of 
such tactics; but their voices were smothered 
by the cheers of the jubilant east stand, who 
had either not observed Collingwood’s action 
or chose to ignore it. The umpire and referee 
were equally oblivious. Professor Chadwick 
marked with his heel the spot where the ball 
was to be put into play and then for the first 
time seemed to see that Miller could not get 
up. 

Time was called and a group of his team 
mates gathered round him. Collingwood, per- 
fectly callous and grinning as if he thought the 
affair a joke, pranced springily about, and 
when Griscom spoke to him shrugged his shoul- 
ders with a laugh. Miller, who had risen by 
this time, was evidently making a complaint. 
Griscom rejoined the group and there was a 
brief powwow, which ended in the officials wav- 
ing the players to their positions. When it 
was seen that Collingwood was back of the Pre- 
paratory line, the Academy’s adherents ut- 
tered a howl of disgust. 


40 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“It’s rotten,” exclaimed Tutt. “They ought 
to have ruled him off.” 

“I’d just like to get into the game with him 
for a few minutes,” growled Forbes, cracking 
his finger joints. 

“And do a little rough-house yourself?” 
grinned Blair. 

“It’s a beastly shame,” said Gershom. “To 
lame our best man deliberately! That Col- 
lingwood may be the son of a magnate, but he’s 
a mucker all right.” 

Play had begun. Eaton’s goal was only five 
yards away, and the partisans of both schools 
leaned forward with bated breath as Snow, the 
Academy quarter, rattled off the mystic num- 
bers. 

The two lines surged together, the ends run- 
ning in, and the players swayed back and forth, 
legs braced and arms locked in straining 
clutches until the mass began to topple. One 
after the other went down in a heap. The 
umpire ran up and ordered the players to rise. 
Slowly the heap began to disintegrate. 

“No gain,” commented Gershom. 

“Snow ought to try Osborn,” said Harry 
Forbes. 


A ROUGH-HOUSE FOOTBALL GAME 41 


And this is just what the Academy quarter 
did. The ball was snapped back, and tucking 
it under his arm Osborn got under way. The 
two lines met again and the dark blue pre- 
served its formation unbroken; but so did the 
yellow and black. The expected gap be- 
tween left guard and tackle did not materialize 
and Osborn, a square, heavy player, powerful 
rather than fast, hesitated in his stride for a 
fraction of a second. Then, rather than throw 
himself against the solid rampart of bodies for 
a sure loss, he kept on with the intention of 
skirting left end. 

It was Collingwood again who stopped the 
runner. He saw Osborn’s intention and, far 
quicker than the Academy captain, circled the 
line and nailed him for a loss. And as he had 
done with Miller, his knees brutally assaulted 
the small of the other boy’s back. 

It was cleverly done and not many of the 
spectators perceived it, but little Snow, the 
Academy quarter, saw it and his peppery tem- 
per flared up uncontrollably. As Colling- 
wood got up Snow hit him square on his laugh- 
ing mouth. Collingwood’s grin became fiercer 
and his hands flew up, but the two players 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


were instantly separated by their comrades. 
Professor Chadwick peremptorily sent Snow 
from the field. 

The umpire’s action was perfectly justified, 
but Collingwood also should have been retired. 
Fortunately for him the officials had not seen 
his rough work and, with a puffed lip, he took 
his place back of the line. The hopes of the 
Academy supporters sank almost to zero. 
Cutler, the substitute quarter, was not in the 
same class with Snow and Miller still limped. 

“They’ll hold us, thanks to that dirty Col- 
lingwood, ” said Tutt, savagely. “If the of- 
ficials don’t recover their eyesight before long, 
he’ll cripple half our team.” 

But Cutler, fresh and full of fight, accom- 
plished the unexpected. His generalship was 
not usually very good. For once he had an in- 
spiration and instead of passing the ball to one 
of the big guards or plunging backs he calmly 
took it himself, setting in motion a fake play 
which convinced Preparatory that Royal, the 
right guard, was to make the attempt. 

The yellow and black threw themselves on 
Royal like a pack of wolves and then round the 
churning mass little Cutler slipped, dived be- 


A ROUGH-HOUSE FOOTBALL GAME 43 


tween the bulky opponents, dashed across the 
few remaining yards, and sprawled headlong 
between the posts, but with the ball beneath his 
breast. 

The joyous rooters simply fell from the west 
bleachers like an avalanche of yelling Indians, 
and the cheers and the braying of horns rose 
to a wilder pitch as Osborn kicked the easy 
goal. Mud Hens and Zulus clasped hands in 
crazy dances, or beat each other’s hats in with 
an exuberance of friendliness. Poor Snow 
mingled tears of disappointment with his fren- 
zied whoops. 

“Oh, you Cutler!” he screamed. “Oh my, 
oh my ! Oh, why couldn’t I have been in that !” 

“Never mind, Snowy,” cried Gershom. 
“That punch was almost as good as a touch- 
down.” 

“Hullo, Gersh. Did you see him knee Os- 
born — and Miller, too?” said Snow. 

“You bet we did, the mucker,” came a chorus 
from behind the rope. 

“They’re all slugging on the quiet except 
Griscom and Jaynes,” said Snow. “You’ll see 
a rough game now, mark my words. They’ll 
be as mad as a pig in a fence after that goal.” 


44 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


There was no trace left of that rather lofty 
air with which Eaton had begun the game. 
Grim determination marked every face as they 
settled down to pay these “country bumpkins” 
for their presumptuous hopes. 

“Break ’em up ! Break ’em up ! Hip, hip, 
boom, ah!” yelled the solid east stand, and 
Eaton, angrily aggressive, held the Academy on 
three downs and then began to pound through 
them for steady gains. Man for man they 
were outplaying their opponents. Griscom 
and Collingwood were particularly brilliant, 
but every play of the latter roused a storm of 
hisses and catcalls from the west side of the 
field. The ill feeling was not confined to the 
spectators. With every foot of ground they 
lost, Academy grew more stubborn and 
rougher in her defense, and more than once the 
smacking sound of blows was heard. But 
nothing could stop Eaton’s progress. Griscom 
plunged between the posts for a touchdown and 
Jaynes kicked the goal, just as the whistle 
blew, announcing the end of the first period. 

The intermission of ten minutes, instead of 
calming their tempers, brought the rivals into 
the field more hostile than before. Bad feeling 


A ROUGH-HOUSE FOOTBALL GAME 45 


had always existed between the schools. 
Academy considered Eaton as a collection of 
snobs whose pockets were lined with more or 
less ill-gotten gains. Eaton affected an 
amused contempt for the “country bumpkins” 
and mimicked their manners and speech gro- 
tesquely; and the more reckless of them lost no 
opportunity of setting boats adrift or letting 
cattle out of pasture and playing other tricks 
of a like nature. That the rustics, the country 
bumpkins, should score a touchdown against 
the best eleven Eaton had ever had was mad- 
dening. The team returned to the gridiron 
furious and resolved to snow their opponents 
under. Academy, incensed that Collingwood 
had not been ruled off for his slugging, was 
equally determined to win by hook or by crook. 

In the first mix-up so much temper was 
shown that the umpire warned both teams. 
Apparently this had not the slightest effect. 
On the next play a fake pass enabled Jaynes to 
make eight yards, but Osborn stopped him with 
such a fearful tackle that the big fullback was 
assisted to the side lines with a badly wrenched 
knee. Eaton was maddened by the loss of 
this valuable player and slugging began in 


46 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

earnest. Gershom, Tutt, and other Mud 
Hens had left their seats and were following 
the plays down the field. The teams were so 
near the rope that they saw the blows given 
and returned. And as they had an eye out 
specially for Collingwood, they saw him craft- 
ily deliver a short arm punch on Jameson’s 
jaw. This was too much and the Mud Hens 
hurled every opprobrious epithet they could 
muster at the black and yellow back. 

As Collingwood turned his head and re- 
garded them with a fierce and scornful grin, 
Gershom shook his fist at him. 

“Yah, you Pittsburg mucker!” he shouted. 
“You’re the rottenest thing that ever disgraced 
a football field.” 

There was another powwow going on, the 
umpire and referee lecturing the captains in- 
dignantly in the middle of a crowd of red- 
faced, angry players. Collingwood started for- 
ward as if he meant to assault Gershom, but 
he thought better of it. 

“I’ll get you for that yet, bumpkin,” he said, 
eying Gershom fixedly. 

“Will you? Perhaps I’ll get you, mucker,” 
retorted Gershom. 


A ROUGH-HOUSE FOOTBALL GAME 47 


“Here, come over here, Al,” called Griscom, 
and the halfback, with another angry glance 
at the Mud Hens, joined the group which was 
now protesting strongly the umpire’s rulings. 
But Professor Chadwick was firm and in the 
end Hunter and Collingwood of Eaton and 
Joyce and Miller of the Academy were sent 
to the side lines for slugging. As the substi- 
tutes trotted on to the field, casting their sweat- 
ers behind them, the partisans of both teams 
preserved a grim silence. The blow had fallen 
on both and it was a severe one. 

Academy really suffered the most, since her 
substitutes were not so good as Eaton’s, and 
the weakness was soon apparent. Eaton 
rushed the ball steadily down the field and 
Griscom went across for another touchdown, 
sending the black and yellow adherents into 
an ecstasy of triumph. Then the plays see- 
sawed desperately back and forth, with Eaton 
gaining a little, until the whistle put an end 
to the struggle for a moment. 

No one had ever seen anything equal to the 
open roughness of the game when play was 
recommenced. The officials, realizing that 
both schools and especially Academy had al- 


48 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


most exhausted their substitutes, did their best 
to quell the ugly spirit by repeated warnings 
and exhortations, but the teams were beyond 
control. Cutler broke through the dark blue 
line and was downed by Osborn, who was 
promptly seized by the neck and thrown from 
his man by Fillmore, the substitute who had 
taken Collingwood’s place. Graves of Acad- 
emy grappled Fillmore in turn and the half- 
back drew off and smashed him in the face. 
Instantly half a dozen players were in a mix- 
up, and the spectators threw down the ropes 
and rushed on to the field. 

Griscom and Osborn, with some of the cooler 
on-lookers, came to the aid of the officials and 
succeeded in stopping what promised to prove 
a small riot. In loud, indignant tones Pro- 
fessor Chadwick called the game off and 
threatened to interdict all future contest be- 
tween the schools if the teams did not leave the 
field quietly and at once. 

“I am ashamed of you,” he said. “It has 
been a most unsportsmanlike exhibition. 
Griscom, get the fellows in the barge at once 
and all of you other boys return directly to the 
school.” 

The two elevens, sobered and alarmed at the 


A ROUGH-HOUSE FOOTBALL GAME 49 

results of their folly, withdrew, and as there 
was nothing but the empty, trampled field to 
gaze at the spectators soon followed their ex- 
ample. The great game had proved a catas- 
trophe. 

With dismal looks the Mud Hens strolled 
disconsolately away, their thirst for excitement 
unsatisfied and conjecturing rather fearfully 
upon Professor Chadwick’s threats. 

“That fellow Collingwood began it all. The 
game would have been played decently if it 
hadn’t been for his roughhouse work at the 
start,” said Tutt. 

“We should have had to take a licking, I 
guess,” said Forbes, “but that would have been 
better than the prospect of no game next year. 
Well, there’s no use borrowing trouble. What 
shall we do now? The afternoon’s not half 
over.” 

“Let’s take that scout around the Bloodsaw 
farm,” suggested Gershc n. “I should like to 
see if he has our decoys.” 

The element of danger in this plan appealed 
to the spirit of the rest. 

“Come on!” exclaimed Blair, and the four 
Mud Hens entered the woods south of the 
Academy grounds with joyous alacrity. 


CHAPTER IV 

A RACE WITH THE BLOODSAWS 

The Bloodsaw farm lay in the rolling and 
heavily wooded strip between Ten Mile Lake 
and the bay shore. The land thereabouts was 
not particularly favorable for agriculture, and 
being into the bargain rather distant from the 
center of the town it was very sparsely settled, 
a feature that pleased the Bloodsaws well 
enough. They were not the sort of people who 
liked near neighbors. 

It was presumed that Manuel was a native 
of the Cape Verde Islands and that he had 
come to some New England port on a whaling 
vessel, as so many of the dusky islanders had. 
“The Portugee niggers,” as they were called, 
seemed to have a natural affinity for cranberry 
bogs, and a good many had drifted into East- 
marsh, which had a large acreage of bog land. 
They were peaceable people in the main, fru- 
gal and industrious; but Manuel and his fam- 
ily were the exceptions to the rule. They 

50 


A RACE WITH THE BLOODSAWS 51 


were quarrelsome and had been repeatedly ac- 
cused of stealing, though never actually caught 
red-handed, and it was more than suspected 
that they sold gin and whisky on the quiet. 

Besides Manuel and his darker-skinned wife, 
there were three sons : Peter, or Pedro, the eld- 
est, Dolph the next, and John the youngest. 
They were all husky, agile, hot-tempered fel- 
lows who would just as soon draw a knife in 
their quarrels as not, and their reputation was 
so bad that no one cared to have any trouble 
with them. In fact, some of the farmers pre- 
ferred to lose their hens rather than run the 
risk of having to fight the Bloodsaws. 

The Mud Hens were not taking any chances. 
They kept inside the thick growth of swamp 
maple, young hornbeam, and juniper that bor- 
dered Ten Mile Lake until they came to the 
oozy muck and quaking nigger-heads of 
Quilty’s swamp, where they turned and went 
east toward the bay. There had never been 
any Quilty there within their memory, but the 
ruined farmhouse, tenanted by bats and squir- 
rels, still clung to a slope above the swamp into 
which its ghastly shattered windows glared. 
It was naturally a creepy sort of place, the 


52 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


woods thick around it and the black swamp be- 
low with its hordes of water snakes and gaunt 
night herons; and the report that Quilty had 
hanged himself from a rafter in the attic, after 
a fit of delirium tremens, was not calculated 
to enhance its aspect. 

Skirting the base of Wyman’s hill, they 
came out into the old scrub-grown pasture by 
Moffat’s Pond, famous for its blue eels and 
horn-pout. The sizable brook which fed the 
upper end of the pond ran through the Blood- 
saw farm, and as the Mud Hens followed its 
winding course through thickets of alder they 
presently saw the farm buildings shining gray 
in the midst of a ring of wind-bent poplars. A 
careful reconnoiter assured them that none of 
the Portuguese were working about the place. 

The Bloodsaws kept their ducks in pens 
along the brook the Mud Hens had been fol- 
lowing, but they had cleared all the brush away 
and a long stretch of open ground lay between 
the edge of the thicket and the buildings. 
About one hundred yards from the thickets 
they had constructed an elaborate dam where 
the brook ran through a broad, deep gully. 
The gully was full of water, which, some dis- 


A RACE WITH THE BLOODSAWS 53 


tance farther on where the hanks fell away, had 
spread itself over the meadow in a fine pool. 
Here the Bloodsaw ducks were enjoying the 
mellow afternoon sun, some swimming about, 
others preening themselves on the bank or doz- 
ing with their bills thrust under their wings. 
A wire fence inclosed the pool securely and 
kept them from straying up or down stream. 

“If you two fellows will spread out and keep 
watch, Bill and I will take a chance on creep- 
ing up to the pens/' said Gershom. “Unless 
we get pretty close, we can’t pick our birds out 
of a big bunch like that.” 

This arrangement was satisfactory. Forbes 
crept off to a knoll on the right, and Blair went 
off to the left where he could overlook the 
lower end of the farm. Bill and Gershom 
started stealthily up the bank on hands and 
knees, availing themselves of every tussock or 
tall weed with as much pains as if they were 
Indian warriors bent on massacring a peaceful 
household. No signal came from the watchers, 
and the two stalkers reached that part of the 
wire fence swinging across the brook and scru- 
tinized intently the unconscious fowl. Pres- 
ently Gershom uttered an excited exclamation. 


54 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“See that one near the shore in line with the 
two drakes,” he said. “There, she’s shaking 
her wing. See? That’s one of our birds, 
Bill.” 

“You’re right. I’d know her anywhere by 
that broad line over the eye and the cut of her 
tail. It was Manuel, after all, or one of his 
boys. They’re downright thieves.” 

“They’ve always been that. If some people 
weren’t so afraid of them, they would have been 
in jail before this.” 

“Yes, for sticking a knife into somebody’s 
ribs. That’s the trouble. They’d cut a fel- 
low in a minute if they knew he peached on 
them. Have you spotted the other duck?” 

“No, she’s probably in that raft at the upper 
end. I’ll break it up and then we’ll see.” He 
lisped softly between his teeth: “Duck, duck, 
duck.” The clatter of sound it aroused made 
him desist in alarm, and they flattened them- 
selves tight to the bank until it died down. 
But the feeding call had accomplished its pur- 
pose. Ducks and drakes moved quickly about, 
cocking up their inquisitive heads and search- 
ing for the man with the corn bucket. The 
scattered raft swam this way and that around 


A RACE WITH THE BLOODSAWS 55 


the pool. One after another displayed itself 
fully to the boys, and suddenly at the same in- 
stant both perceived the second caller. 

“Unless they’ve grown shy they’ll come to us, 
but w T e can’t get them through the fence,” said 
Gershom. “Shall we climb over it?” 

Tutt surveyed it doubtfully. It was tall 
and very stout, and across the tops of the strong 
posts to which it was stapled ran a double 
strand of barbed wire. 

“Knowing something about the ways of 
thieves, they’ve made it pretty nearly thief 
proof,” he said. “They are our birds, though. 
I don’t see why we should be afraid to get 
them.” 

He looked at Gershom and they exchanged a 
grin of understanding. 

“But we are,” said Gershom. 

Looking around him cautiously, he arose, 
and Tutt followed his example. They grasped 
the fence and were endeavoring to insert their 
toes in the small meshes when the ducks caught 
sight of them and began a terrific and eager 
clamor, those on the bank flapping their wings 
and those afloat churning the water violently 
with their paddles. The boys dropped at once 
and hugged the ground apprehensively. 


56 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“This won’t do at all,” growled Tutt. “I 
don’t believe Bloodsaw ever feeds that flock. 
We’d better mosy.” 

They crawled down the brook as far as the 
dam, which afforded a convenient hiding place, 
and hearing no signal from Blair or Forbes 
they lay there indignantly watching the ducks 
still moving restlessly about. 

“I’ll tell you what to do!” exclaimed Tutt. 
“We’ll rip this old dam down.” 

“Good idea! But can we do it? It looks 
as solid as a dike,” said Ger shorn. 

Tutt gave the clear “crake, crake” call of 
the Mud Hens, and presently Blair and Forbes 
appeared at the edge of the thicket and crept 
up the brook toward them. 

“Our two callers are there all right, but the 
fence is simply a beastly one and the ducks 
make such an infernal racket as soon as we show 
ourselves,” said Gershom. “The Bloodsaws 
would surely hear us if we tried to get into the 
pen, and they’d have nerve enough to claim 
we were trying to steal their birds. Large- 
eyed Bill, the Boy Dreadnought, suggests that 
we rip the dam down.” 

“A very nifty scheme if we were beavers,” 
said Forbes. 


A RACE WITH THE BLOODSAWS 57 

“You’re always afraid of work unless it’s 
disguised as a game,” chaffed Blair. “Come 
on, let’s destroy it for the honor of the Mud 
Hens.” 

“Oh, if it’s an honorable necessity I’m will- 
ing,” laughed Forbes. 

It was tough work, but they started the turf 
at last, ripping it off in ragged sheets. The 
dirt underneath came away more easily, and 
then they tackled the core of the dam, a mass 
of stones and logs and refuse. The water 
working in among the interstices helped the 
work of demolition, and as the obstruction grew 
less able to resist its pressure the stones began 
to slide and rattle down into the bed of the 
brook below. Finally the whole thing began 
to totter. The Mud Hens scrambled up the 
steep sides of the gully just in time. Down 
went the dam with white water roaring over it, 
rejoicing in its liberty; the brook filled and 
choked below; small streams rushed off into the 
meadow on either side, while the pond above 
began to shrink rapidly. 

In less than half an hour where the pond had 
been there was nothing but a sodden black area 
with a small stream running through its center. 


58 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


The amazed ducks waddled about in the mud 
volubly discussing the mysterious catastrophe. 
The Mud Hens watched for some signs of life 
at the farmhouse, but all was silent and appar- 
ently deserted and Gershom’s courage rose 
higher. 

“Come on, Bill, let’s get the ducks,” he sug- 
gested. “I don’t believe there’s a soul at 
home.” 

Tutt required very little urging, and they 
crept back to the pen. 

“You can pass them over to me while Harry 
keeps a lookout,” said Blair. 

Gershom had just begun to mount the fence 
when Forbes uttered an exclamation and 
pointed up the brook. At the upper end of 
the pond and just outside of the wire fence 
were several bulky, mysterious objects. Be- 
fore the destruction of the dam they had been 
hidden beneath the surface of the pool, but now 
only a few inches of water trickled around 
them. Thoughts of secreted plunder popped 
into the boys’ heads immediately. 

“Perhaps Wilson’s spoons are in those 
boxes,” said Tutt. “And the teaset that was 
stolen from old Miss Plummer.” 


A RACE WITH THE BLOODSAWS 59 

“It’s our duty to investigate/’ announced 
Forbes, firmly. “Come on, fellows.” 

They warily approached the objects, two 
large wooden boxes and two of tin. The lids 
were not fastened down, and as Tutt raised one 
they peered into the interior excitedly expect- 
ing to see the gleam of silverware, but a disap- 
pointment met them. The box held nothing 
save bottles, and on lifting the other lids the 
contents of all four boxes were seen to be the 
same. They looked at each other perplexed; 
then the light of understanding dawned. 

“It’s where they hide their booze,” exclaimed 
Gershom. “No wonder the constable couldn’t 
find a drop.” 

They turned the bottles over. The labels set 
forth the admirable qualities of various brands 
of gin and whisky, in glowing terms and crude 
colors. 

“Here goes!” cried Forbes, and he smashed 
one of the bottles against a rock, filling the air 
with the pungent reek of bad alcohol. “Break 
’em up, boys.” But just as he raised a second 
one in the air his eye caught sight of a motion- 
less figure standing by the kitchen door of the 
farmhouse. The bottle slipped from his fin- 
gers and he leaped up. 


60 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“There’s one of ’em! Quick! Back to the 
woods!” he cried. 

The Mud Hens followed his lead and shot 
around the duck pen and were off down the 
brook as if they had wings. A loud, angry 
cry arose from the farmyard. Turning his 
head, Gershom saw three Bloodsaws in hot pur- 
suit. Even John, the youngest of the family, 
was practically a grown man, so the odds in 
favor of the Mud Hens so far as numbers went 
counted for nothing. Flight was the only safe 
course, and it behooved them to put their best 
foot forward, for the Bloodsaws were as lean 
and strong as terriers in condition and the sons 
had won many a race at the county fairs. 

“Better bear off toward old Moffat’s,” said 
Gershom, as they smashed through the brown- 
stemmed alders. “It’s easier going and the 
shortest way to my place.” 

“It’s three miles to the bay road as we head,” 
said Tutt. “They won’t stick that long.” 

As soon as they could the Mud Hens cut out 
into the scrubby pasture land where the footing 
was firmer. The helter-skelter pace of the 
thickets had shaken itself down to the swinging 
lope common in the hare and hound runs when 


A RACE WITH THE BLOODSAWS 61 

the trail lay plain. Round the east side of 
Wyman’s hill they went, and just as they en- 
tered the belt of heavy growth that marked the 
outlet of Quilty’s swamp the Bloodsaws came 
into view, racing like whippets. 

“Lucky we had a good start. Those fellows 
can go some,” remarked Blair. 

“Oughtn’t we to hit up the pace?” asked 
Tutt, nervously. 

The others shook their heads. 

“Play safe. Take it easy. Then we shall 
have a spurt up our sleeves if we need one,” said 
Forbes. 

Since he was the biggest and strongest of 
the four, they let him take the lead through the 
heavy growth, following him as a string of 
geese follow an old gander against a head wind. 
It was a miry, tangled stretch, rank with tall 
ferns that concealed a network of old juniper 
roots. Gershom took a header into a bull briar 
patch and almost scratched out both his eyes, 
and Tutt turned his ankle sharply but tugged 
on with the sweat of pain coming out on his 
forehead. No one knew that anything was the 
matter with him until they broke out into the 
clearing around Moffat’s farm. Then Tutt 


62 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


began to lag behind and finally he dropped to 
a hobble. 

“What’s the matter, Bill?” called Gershom 
over his shoulder. 

“Sprained my confounded ankle. It’s no 
use. I’m out of the running. Go ahead.” 

“Go nothing, you idiot,” said Gershom. 
“Here, fellows, Bill’s sprained his ankle.” 

The three turned and ran back. Gershom 
and Harry put their arms around Bill’s waist 
and half carried him along at a trot. But a 
a very little of this was all Tutt wanted. His 
face began to screw up and turn white. 

“Chuck me into old Moffat’s barn and go 
on,” he gasped. “We have time before they 
see us. They won’t know I’ve dropped out.” 

“We’ll stick by you,” said Gershom, reas- 
suringly. “If old Moffat’s at home we’ll 
throw ourselves on his mercy. He doesn’t like 
the Bloodsaws any too well.” 

As they hurried up to the farmhouse its 
green door, ornamented with a knocker that 
resembled a funeral wreath done in brass, 
opened and Moffat himself stepped out on the 
broad stone step. He regarded the boys men- 
acingly from under a tremendous pair of griz- 
zled eyebrows. The old man was a good deal 


A RACE WITH THE BLOODSAWS 63 

of a hermit and report said that he was a 
miser as well. One thing was sure, he dis- 
couraged callers or trespassers of any kind. 

“What do you want here?” he bellowed. 

As Blair began to speak the three Bloodsaws 
burst from the woods and catching sight of the 
boys came dashing across the meadow. Blair 
had barely time to gasp out the facts, but fortu- 
nately Moffat’s perceptions were quick. He 
opened the door wider and waved them per- 
emptorily into a long living room that seemed 
alive with cats of all colors and sizes. Then 
stepping backward he swelled himself up un- 
til he seemed to fill the doorway. 

“Come now, what’s all this!” he shouted. 
“Running over my land like a herd of cattle! 
What the devil do you mean by it?” 

Through one of the front windows the Mud 
Hens saw Manuel’s three sons pull up about 
twenty feet away from the stone doorstep, 
panting and rolling their eyes. The last spurt 
had pretty well winded them. At last Pedro 
got his breath. Unlike his father Pedro had 
been to school and could talk as good English 
as any native of Eastmarsh. 

“We want to take those boys to the consta- 
ble, Mr. Moffat,” he said, with a dark look. 


64 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“They’ve broken down our dam and destroyed 
other property and they tried to steal our 
ducks.” 

“So you don’t like stealing unless you do it 
yourselves, eh?” said the blunt old man. “I 
know you and your whole tribe and I wouldn’t 
turn a skunk over to you. No, sir. Nor a 
garter snake. Now get off my land and don’t 
you ever show your yellow faces on it again.” 

“By don’t you call me yellow!” cried 

Pedro, gritting his teeth. 

John, the youngest, had a stick in his hand. 
He spat on his palm, took a good grip and be- 
gan to edge forward. 

“What’s the use of standing here listening 
to his jaw?” he asked his brothers fiercely. 

The three grew rigid like cats before they 
make a final rush at some unsuspecting bird; 
but old Moffat was not the unsuspecting kind. 
He reached around the lintel of the door and 
grasped a long fowling piece that stood there 
and in the next moment the muzzle had the 
Bloodsaws covered. 

“I’ll burn you up if you move an inch 
nearer!” he said, sinking his loud voice almost 
to a whisper. 



“‘I’LL BURN YOU UP IF YOU MOVE AN INCH NEARER.’” 




CHAPTER V 


GOOD-BY TO ATHLETICS 

The hearts of the boys flopped sickeningly. 
With appalling suddenness the affair had 
taken a turn so sinister that they were horri- 
bly afraid a tragedy might happen under their 
noses. There was something about the strange 
softness of old Moffat’s voice that was more 
emphatically deadly than any loud command. 
The Bloodsaws were not slow to realize it. 
Dangerous themselves, they could recognize 
danger when it confronted them. There was 
no bluff in the steady gray eye that squinted 
along the brown rib, and the ends of old Mof- 
fat’s jawbones stuck out like the knuckles of 
a fighting gander’s wings. 

‘Til give you a minute to get out of here,” 
said Moffat, quietly. 

The Bloodsaws glared like three devils, but 
the coldness of the gray eye restrained any 
demonstrations of the rage seething in them 
65 


66 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


and, as the boys had to admit, they showed 
some dignity in their retreat. 

Not one of them said a word. John, his eyes 
blazing, made a bow that conveyed a threat as 
plainly as his tongue could have done, and then 
turned away with his scowling brothers. Sev- 
eral hundred yards away, at a point beyond 
the range of the fowling-piece, they turned and 
surveyed the house. The way they did it, the 
steadfast, silent scrutiny with which they 
seemed to subject every portion and detail of 
the house as if to carry away a picture of it 
for some awful purpose, made the boys’ blood 
run cold; but old Moffat merely laughed. 

“The yellow dogs,” he said. “I never did 
like dogs. Cats, now, are fine people.” 

Half-a-dozen of his pets came about his legs, 
purring and wriggling the tips of their erect 
tails. The old man snapped his big fingers at 
them. 

“Puss, tit, tit. We don’t like curs, do we?” 
he said, his voice regaining its natural deep-sea 
rumble. “Next to Finns cats make the best 
sailors and they ain’t half so contrairy.” 

The room had the strong-ribbed look of a 
ship’s cabin, and everything was as neat as wax ; 


GOOD-BY TO ATHLETICS 


67 


the nautical instruments on the mantelpiece 
were polished until they shone again, and the 
low table in the center had a rack at one end 
filled with clean tumblers and spotless china. 
Old Moffat had been captain of a bark once, 
and it was believed that he had laid up more 
than a bit of money. 

“Thank you for taking us in,” said Gershom. 
“We couldn’t have got away, with Bill’s 
sprained ankle.” 

“I guess I’ll have to drive him home as it 
is,” said Moffat. “I’ve got only a buggy, so 
the rest of you will have to walk. You needn’t 
thank me. Blow it, but it was worth ten dol- 
lars to show those yellow dogs that they can’t 
bully me.” The belligerent old fellow gave a 
deep bass chuckle that sounded like water plop- 
ping from the bung hole of a cask. 

As the three Mud Hens plodded home in the 
dusk, they were rather thoughtful. 

“The Bloodsaws will have it in for old 
Moffat after this,” ruminated Blair. “Ugh! 
It makes me shiver to think of the way they 
stared back at the house.” 

“Moffat wasn’t ship captain for nothing,” 
said Forbes. “He can take care of himself. 


68 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


don’t worry. But it was mighty white of him 
to stand by us.” 

When Gershom reached home, it was dark 
and supper was over. His father and Charlie 
Hatch were in the barn. Telling his mother 
not to leave her knitting, Gershom got what 
he wanted from the ice chest and had a sub- 
stantial if lonely meal. He said nothing to 
his parents concerning the events of the day, 
for Hatch had told them of the way the foot- 
ball game had ended and the rest Gershom 
preferred to keep to himself. 

On Sunday morning, however, he walked 
over to the constable’s house and told him about 
the liquor they had discovered in the Blood- 
saws’ brook. Mr. Fairbrother was an enor- 
mous man with a circular eye and a vast bullet 
head, who had been elected to his office, the 
wags said, because he didn’t know enough to 
be afraid. He never did anything without 
mature reflection. It was his theory that an 
official of the law should first assemble his facts 
and then sleep on them; if anything was 
hatched by this process, then it was time to 
make a ponderous advance. 

“You should have told me yesterday,” he 


GOOD-BY TO ATHLETICS 


69 


grumbled. “I could have thought it over dur- 
ing the night and been ready for action to-day. 
Now you’ve set me back twelve hours, young 
man.” 

“You could drive up there this morning,” 
suggested Gershom. “If you give them too 
much time, they’ll have it safely hidden again.” 

“Don’t tell me what I’m to do!” said Mr. 
Fairbrother, slowly growing purple at such 
impudence. “You run along now and mind 
your own business. And the next time you 
want to invoke the law be careful when and how 
you do it or I’ll arrest you for contempt.” 

Dismissed dishonorably from the majestic 
presence of Mr. Fairbrother, Gershom called 
on Bill Tutt and eased his feelings somewhat 
by ridiculing the constable’s voice and air. 
The sprained ankle was doing well. Bill was 
more interested in the football situation than 
he was about the liquor question, for Forbes 
had telephoned that he had seen “Looma” 
Howard and Looma was even more pessimis- 
tic than ordinary. Looma — no one could put 
a finger on the exact reason for the singular 
nickname save that it seemed to fit his air of 
general gloom — was the capable manager of 


70 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


the Academy football and baseball teams and 
was naturally the fountain head of all reliable 
information concerning them. According to 
Forbes, Looma was wearing crape and singing 
requiems. 

“Wouldn’t it be fierce if they forbid any 
games between the schools?” said Bill. 

Gershom agreed, but didn’t think it prob- 
able. He had strong hopes of making one or 
both teams next fall when he should enter 
Academy. Of course he did not expect to 
make good at once in his first year, except, 
perhaps, at baseball. In that game he believed 
he could stand comparison with most of the 
present players, especially at the bat. No, he 
wouldn’t allow himself to consider for a mo- 
ment the possibility of a break between the 
schools. Professor Chadwick would make the 
football captains apologize and rest content 
with that. 

Gershom overlooked the fact that the late 
game was not the first unsportsmanlike display 
to provoke the authorities. There had been a 
row of some sort at every recent meeting and 
the townspeople had begun to complain. 
Academy was fully as much at fault as Eaton, 


GOOD-BY TO ATHLETICS 


71 


but the local school had less control over its 
boys for the reason that it left most of the dis- 
cipline to home rule. Eaton, drawing its pu- 
pils from nearly every state in the union, nec- 
essarily had full charge of their manners and 
morals and the initiatory step was expected to 
come from them. 

On this occasion it came with startling 
promptness. On his way home from school 
the next day Gershom met Looma Howard 
bicycling back from the Academy in a state of 
blue self -absorption. He condescended to 
stop when Gershom hailed him, for he took a 
sort of morbid pleasure in disseminating the 
news he carried and Gershom was a promising 
candidate for athletic honors. Howard had a 
far-seeing and discriminating eye for such. 

“Yes, old Chadwick’s signed the death war- 
rant,” he repeated in reply to Gershom’s face 
of consternation. “Everything’s included. 
The whole schedule is knocked bally west and 
only old Chad and the athletic committee know 
for how long. And the worst of it is I saw it 
coming and warned the fellows, but they were 
too smart to need any advice.” 

This was perfectly true, but as Looma was 


72 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


a regular athletic Cassandra the boys seldom 
paid any attention to his forebodings. 

“I used to think we might do something with 
you next fall,” he said, surveying Gershom crit- 
ically. “Those pipe dreams are all over now. 
It doesn’t make much difference whether the 
next class is composed of dwarfs or Sandows.” 

“Oh, but don’t you think the trouble will be 
straightened out by that time?” said Gershom. 

Looma shook his head in gloomy satisfac- 
tion. 

“Perhaps, if the fellows would behave; but 
they won’t. They’ll be worse than ever after 
this. They’ll be spoiling for a fight.” 

He mounted his wheel and rode off, leaving 
Gershom a prey to the most dismal regrets. 

The next day the news was all over town, and 
most parents expressed the same satisfaction 
that Mr. and Mrs. Foy felt. It was time the 
hot young heads were made to feel the bridle. 
If games could not be played without bad 
blood, it was time to stop the games. Charlie 
Hatch was the only grown person who was un- 
reservedly on the schools’ side. The hired man 
was a fan of the first water. 

“They might have settled it up some other 


GOOD-BY TO ATHLETICS 


73 


way,” he maintained. “They’re a parcel of 
boneheads. I don’t stand for muckerishness, 
but what’s the good of spoiling sport when 
they could have put that Collingwood on the 
bench and made a useful example of him? It 
was his work that brought down the trouble 
anyway.” 

Gershom told him of his meeting with Col- 
lingwood and the Eaton fellows the day he had 
gone snipe shooting. 

“I know that kind,” said Hatch. “Regular 
fire-eaters. They simply can’t help scrapping. 
It makes them dandy individual players, but 
it spoils team work. That Collingwood will 
do better after he has had one good licking.” 

“I’d like to give it to him,” said Gershom. 

“Well, you’re big enough and strong 
enough, that’s sure. But he looks as if he were 
used to fighting and you’re not. You haven’t 
had any more experience than that bull calf 
yonder. Keep away from him unless he cor- 
ners you; then hit him hard and first.” 

On Wednesday Mr. Foy sent Gershom to 
the Coal & Lumber Company to pick out a 
piece of white pine for a new pantry shelf. 
Holt’s corner and Main Street were deserted 


74 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


and Gershom wondered rather curiously where 
all the fellows were. Probably off having a 
good time somewhere, he decided with deep 
self-pity. 

Back of the Lumber Company’s long build- 
ings and Swizzle’s general store was the fight- 
ing ground or fistic arena of Eastmarsh. Ger- 
shom had witnessed many a bloody battle on 
the bit of high, sparsely grassed marsh, and as 
he entered the square he heard confused but 
unmistakable sounds from that quarter. He 
quickened his pace. A fight was in progress. 

It was only the final tribute to the victor he 
had heard. The fight was over and the boys 
began to pour through the narrow passage be- 
tween the buildings into the square. Eaton 
and Eastmarsh were about equally repre- 
sented. So it had been a school feud affair. 
He had no doubt left when he saw Colling- 
wood, and he knew from the air of those sur- 
rounding him that not only had he been one of 
the principals, but that he had won. And very 
easily to judge from his face, which had neither 
scratch nor bruise on it. 

Bed-headed, eager-faced, his mouth open in 
a laugh that displayed his strong white teeth, 


GOOD-BY TO ATHLETICS 


75 




Collingwood walked briskly toward Gershom. 
He had a fiery, wayward, reckless way with 
him that could not fail to arouse the admiration 
of many boys, particularly the younger ele- 
ment, a band of whom were now dogging his 
heels in rapt interest. Collingwood’s oppo- 
nent was not visible. At least, Gershom could 
not make out who it was at the moment, and 
very soon he had something more important 
to think about, for Collingwood saw him and 
his face became more hawkish and eager than 
ever. 

“Hullo, bumpkin!” he exclaimed. “I’ve 
been looking for you for several days. Perhaps 
your courage isn’t as good as when you’re back 
of the rope.” 

High of look and bright of smile, he stepped 
up to Gershom and stared him up and down. 
The other boys, surprised at first, began to look 
a little serious, while the young fry clustered 
around hungrily and licked their lips. 

“Will you apologize on your knees for call- 
ing me what you did, bumpkin?” asked Colling- 
wood, lightly. 

Gershom felt his skin tingle. 

“No,” he said. “You’re a mucker.” 


76 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


Collingwood darted forward, but two Eaton 
boys caught his arms. 

“Not here,” they remonstrated. “If he’s 
willing to fight, come back of the store.” 

“Say, you fellow, do you want to fight?” 
asked one of them. 

Gershom didn’t, but he replied briefly in the 
affirmative and the Eastmarshers present 
buzzed with approbation and excitement. Sev- 
eral of the older ones gathered round him like 
a bodyguard and the procession turned back 
and filed up the passageway quickly but 
quietly. 

“Stand with your back to the water, Gersh,” 
advised one of his friends. “And look out 
for his left hand. He can use it just as if it 
was his right.” 

This was pleasant news to one who had not 
the faintest idea of the scientific use of either. 
Gershom wished that there had been no inter- 
ference in the square. If he had been struck 
then he could have leaped into the fight without 
thought. The interval and the businesslike 
preparations cooled his blood, and he felt slow 
and clumsy as he took off his jacket and tight- 
ened his belt. And when he looked at Colling- 


GOOD-BY TO ATHLETICS 


77 


wood already waiting for him and noted the 
professional poise of his arms, he realized that 
he was a raw novice beside the Eaton fellow. 
Moreover, there was more than a mere differ- 
ence of skill between them. Collingwood had 
the true unconscious fighting grin. He liked 
this sort of thing. He would wear that same 
grin no matter how clever his opponent might 
be. Gershom felt that his own face was stiff 
and serious. 

Their seconds pushed them forward and now 
they stood with their feet firm on the packed 
clay of the old town ring, like a couple of game- 
cocks. 

“Go ahead!” cried an Eaton fellow, inspect- 
ing a handsome gold watch with brisk imper- 
sonality. 

Gershom’s eye lingered on this watch a frac- 
tion of a second too long. He felt a sudden 
crackling shock, and a dozen glittering watches 
seemed suspended in the air close to his face, — 
an efficient reminder that his wits had better 
concentrate on the fight before they were com- 
pletely knocked out of him. 


CHAPTER VI 


A STIFF FIGHT 

Gershom’s physique was too sturdy and his 
condition too excellent to suff er much damage 
from one blow. He backed away, protecting 
himself with upraised arms, until his head 
cleared. Then he went to meet his opponent, 
fiercely and happily conscious of only one feel- 
ing, — that he was eager to fight. He had not 
got in the first blow as Hatch had advised, but 
he didn’t care. With his temperament he 
probably never would strike the initial blow. 
It needed the sting of pain and the indignity of 
being struck to rouse his spirit to the necessary 
pitch. 

The dull thud of good blows received intoxi- 
cated the crowd, but the older boys shook their 
heads sagely. Qershom did not know how 
to use his hands, they observed. He swung 
them like windmill fans, whereas Collingwood 
— ah, his was certainly very pretty play. There 
was no roundabout chopping to his delivery. 


A STIFF FIGHT 


79 


His fists went as straight as bullets, direct from 
the shoulder and with equal readiness. Left, 
right and repeat, with an occasional wicked 
upper cut as Ger shorn’ s rushes became bulllike. 

“You’ll never do it that way, tough as you 
are,” said Norris, as Gershom suffered his face 
to be wiped off with creek water after one of 
the rounds. “Jab, don’t swing. And don’t 
try to hit all the time. Wait till you see an 
opening, then punch.” 

Norris respected Gershom’s gameness, but 
as he sent his man into the ring he felt no con- 
fidence in his ability to win. 

“If he only had half the science that Colling- 
wood has,” he groaned to the group of East- 
marshers. “He’s tremendously strong. I’d 
no idea he had such an arm till I felt of it just 
now; but Collingwood will peck him to pieces 
in another round or two.” 

Gershom began to show surprising form, 
however. He had already perceived the in- 
directness of his methods, and Norris’s advice 
showed him what to do. Instead of rushing 
into Collingwood’s fists as before, he kept him- 
self under better control and tried to wait for 
an opening and then deliver as straight a blow 


80 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


as he could. He could not grasp the intrica- 
cies of defense and attack all at once nor hope 
to show anything like the skill of his opponent, 
but he could and did save himself somewhat. 

The crowd shifted about the ring, maneuver- 
ing for the best view, the small boys wriggling 
into every opening like so many eels. The 
unexpectedly good fight Gershom was putting 
up roused the wildest excitement. Even the 
older boys were not ashamed to share it. 
“Wow! Did you see that one!” “Right on 
the nose!” “That’s nothing; Gersh gave him 
an awful body soak.” “Gosh, he’s down!” 
“He’s up again!” “Now he gets it!” The 
shouts swelled into a roar, savage and trium- 
phant from Eaton, encouraging from East- 
marsh as Gershom rose laboriously, his face a 
red, set mask. Then pandemonium broke 
loose, for with a sudden halfswing he got home 
on Collingwood’s jaw and the Eaton fighter 
sprawled on his back. 

“Now! Oh, now!” “Finish him, Gersh!” 
“Oh! oh! oh!” shrieked Eastmarsh, hysteric- 
ally. But Gershom was too weak to take ad- 
vantage of his chance. Almost the last of his 
strength had gone into that punch. Before 


A STIFF FIGHT 


81 


lie could totter forward Collingwood was on 
his feet and had put him on the defensive once 
more. 

Somehow he got through that round, but he 
knew that unless he could get in another lucky 
punch it was all up with him. Both eyes were 
so nearly closed that he could hardly see. His 
nose seemed to be spread to twice its usual 
dimensions and there was a ringing as of dis- 
tant telephone bells in both his ears. He felt 
no pain now when Collingwood’s fist smashed 
into his face ; only a dull quivering shock down 
his spine. 

He parried automatically, peering between 
his swelled eyelids for that one last chance. 
The crowd was amazed at his ability to stand 
punishment, but Gershom, looking for that one 
opening, was hardly conscious that he was be- 
ing hit. All at once Collingwood seemed to 
drop his guard a little too low. Gershom’s 
nerves and muscles leaped electrically as a 
fierce burning wave seemed to swing him for- 
ward on its crest and send his right fist shooting 
out in a terrific blow. 

He came back to himself, thick of mind, 
deaf, and almost blind ; but presently his swim- 


82 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


ming vision cleared somewhat and he made out 
a misty face bending down over him. Colling- 
wood stood over his victim watching his slow 
writhing with bright eyes. “Had enough?” he 
asked. He repeated the question several 
times. 

“He can’t hear you. Of course he has,” 
growled Norris. 

“You’ve given him all he needs,” said one of 
Collingwood’s friends. “Come on, Al, put 
your coat on.” 

But Al knew that he had been heard. In 
Gershom’s battered face Collingwood read his 
determination to cling like a leech to his self- 
respect, and he admired Gershom for it. If 
they had been alone he probably would have 
tried to wring a confession out of the obstinate 
fellow, but he knew that neither his own crowd 
nor the Eastmarshers would stand for it. 
Grinning and wiping the blood from his lower 
lip, he put on his coat and went nonchalantly 
off with the Eaton bunch, the victor of two bat- 
tles in one afternoon. 

“Collingwood dropped his guard on pur- 
pose,” explained Norris as the vanquished bat- 
tler laved his face and hands in the stinging 


A STIFF FIGHT 


brine of the creek. “When you punched he 
sidestepped and caught you one under the ear. 
A dandy!” Norris’s enthusiastic tones soft- 
ened out of respect to the other’s feelings. “I 
must say you put up a good fight, Gersh. You 
were simply a glutton for punishment. If you 
could pick up a little science, I’d be afraid of 
you myself.” 

Gershom did not wait to hear any more com- 
ments from Norris or the others. He felt 
ashamed of himself and as soon as he had 
washed off the blood he compelled himself to 
go into the Lumber Company’s storeroom and 
face the half-startled, half-grinning man who 
was in charge. 

“Got licked, didn’t you?” observed the fel- 
low. 

Receiving no reply he pulled an armful of 
boards from a rack and then glued his gaze 
morbidly on Gershom’s bruised countenance, 
chuckling irritatingly now and then. The 
mortified Gershom said to himself that he 
would never fight again until he had mastered 
at least the rudiments of the art. Colling- 
wood’s grin hovered before him hatefully. He 
felt the mockery and disdain of it as he had not 


84 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


in the ring. Some day he would knock that 
grin awry; but unless he fought and acquired 
experience how was he going to become Col- 
lingwood’s master — or even equal? The ques- 
tion was unexpectedly answered that evening. 

“What has happened to you, Gershom!” ex- 
claimed his mother when he reached home. 

“I had a fight with A1 Collingwood of Eaton 
Preparatory,” he said. 

At that moment his father came in, looking 
at him a little sternly. 

“You couldn’t have avoided it?” asked Mr. 
Foy. 

“No, I don’t think so,” replied Gershom. 
“Not without showing the white feather.” 

“That white feather is a much maligned ar- 
ticle, Gershom,” said his father. “It is some- 
times the best feather a man can wear in his 
cap, opinions to the contrary notwithstanding. 
I think you boys are behaving in a very silly 
and unmanly way. You are mistaking petty 
prejudice for principles and some day you’ll be 
very much ashamed of yourselves. In the 
meantime you are depriving yourselves of a lot 
of good clean sport. This fight of yours is 
just one of the things that is holding down the 
balance against you.” 


A STIFF FIGHT 


85 


After supper, Gershom, feeling somewhat 
out of favor, retired to Charlie Hatch’s room 
on the second floor of the barn. Whenever he 
went there, which was seldom, he was always 
struck by its almost military neatness and the 
precision with which everything was arranged. 

“Well,” said Hatch as he shut the door, “did 
he lick you very badly?” 

Gershom gave a shamefaced grin and 
nodded. Then observing Hatch’s serious, at- 
tentive air, which acted like balm to his dam- 
aged self-respect, he told the hired man the 
whole story, man-to-man fashion. Hatch 
heard him through in silence, nodding now and 
then over some critical point. 

“So far as I understand it,” he said at last, 
“you made a pretty good chopping-block for 
that fellow. It takes grit to do that and grit 
is the first essential for a fighter. What you 
want to do now is to learn the other side of the 
game — how to do a little chopping yourself.” 

“How am I to learn,” said Gershom, de- 
spondingly. 

“Right here in this shop. Farming wasn’t 
always my business. I was raised on a farm, 
but I didn’t stay there long. I — well, no mat- 


86 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


ter what I did. I was a fly kid. I made my 
mark in one or two ways, but bad habits pulled 
me down the ladder.” 

Hatch had pulled out a worn tin trunk from 
under the bed and was rummaging in it up to 
his elbows while he talked. Gershom caught 
glimpses of several odd-looking objects before 
the hired man drew out a set of boxing gloves 
and shut the lid. The gloves looked as if they 
had been well used. 

“We — the crowd I used to travel with — al- 
ways took these along,” said Hatch. “We 
were a lively set of colts, always in training, 
and some of us might have made good in the 
ring if we’d cared for that kind of business. 
Now put on that pair and I’ll show you how to 
stand and hold yourself.” 

Gershom soon saw that Collingwood was a 
raw novice compared to the hired man. It was 
marvelous to him the ease and dexterity with 
which Hatch used his hands and feet. He 
seemed to know by intuition when a blow was 
coming and toward what quarter. His knowl- 
edge of the art was so precise that he could 
explain as well as practice it, and Gershom 
found to his great satisfaction that he was 
really making some progress. 


A STIFF FIGHT 


87 


“You’re doing first-rate,” said Hatch. 
“Come up here Saturday and I’ll give you an- 
other lesson.” 

“I can’t,” said Gershom, regretfully. “Bill 
and I have planned to go ducking on Broad- 
back. The blacks are flying well now.” 

“Well, we can manage evenings then,” re- 
plied Hatch, “but for really good work we want 
something better than lamplight. You’ll 
make a good boxer, I can see that. My, it 
takes me back to the old days and the boys.” 

Tutt’s ankle had mended rapidly and he and 
Gershom had resolved not to wait any longer 
before trying their luck down the bay, though 
not many red-leggers — as they called the ma- 
ture migrants — had arrived yet. The start 
was to be made from the foot of the Foy farm, 
and somewhat before the appointed time Ger- 
shom was waiting in the lee of the boat shed, 
quite oblivious of the ancient and fishlike odor 
that hung about the place. The strip of beach 
before him was littered with shells and knots 
of amber seaweed. The tide was dead low in 
the bay: the bars of malodorous mud presented 
their slimy backs that ran like old ribs clear to 
the narrow entrance. Yet, in spite of the 


88 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


smells and the naked flats, there was a glory in 
the atmosphere. 

The ebb tide was to Gershom the chosen 
hour of the day. The intimate secrets of the 
bay were then partially revealed and its con- 
trast of color greatest. Close in shore the wa- 
ter ran steel-white. Farther out it shone 
golden, laced with winking black lines, and the 
distant reaches were chains of opals and ame- 
thysts. Even the bars if looked at steadily re- 
vealed delicate hues and sheens that moved 
and trembled like mists. 

Gershom did not let his esthetic apprecia- 
tions make him neglectful of the practical side 
of the scene. Every bird that moved within 
range of his vision caught his eye at once. 
Though they might be too far off to show the 
least sign of color, he knew them by their shape 
or mode of flight; the limp-winged gulls or 
terns, the duck rapidly beating an arrowlike 
course, the timid irregularities of the plover’s 
flight, the heliograph flashes as a flock of sand- 
pipers showed their snowy bellies, the solemnly 
drifting herons — he noted them all with as 
keen an interest as if for the first time, and he 
saw with satisfaction that most of the ducks 


A STIFF FIGHT 


89 


swung low as they approached the ooze of 
Broadback. It was too early for the birds to 
settle there yet, but they plainly found it in- 
viting. 

“With one on Broadback and the other back 
of Sanderling Island, there ought to be some- 
thing doing,” thought Gershom. “Where on 
earth is Bill?” 

According to his habit Tutt arrived late and 
breathless. He had just finished whitewash- 
ing the henhouse and he wished all hens could 
be roasted, boiled, or fricasseed at once. 

“Going to take Brier?” he asked, patting the 
Airedale’s flat head. 

“Yes, he wants to go and he saves me a lot 
of trouble retrieving,” said Gershom. “I 
thought we’d use the blocks to-day; it seems 
hardly worth while to take the birds down the 
bay so early in the season.” 

Tutt agreed. 

“Where shall we go — Broadback and Sand- 
erling? Which do you want?” 

“Let’s draw for them. The longest can take 
Broadback.” 

Tutt picked two pieces of sedge, and arrang- 
ing them in his hand presented the ends to 
Gershom, who drew one. 


90 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“Well, you’ve got Broadback,” announced 
Tutt, throwing away the shorter piece. “Come 
on.” 

They shoved the dory off and took their 
places, Brier scrabbling into the stern, where 
he sat with his grim, whiskered foreface thrust 
forward, his tan ears set nervously. 

“How are the lessons getting on?” asked 
Tutt. It was the great regret of his life that 
he had not witnessed the fight between Ger- 
shom and Collingwood. The reports that had 
come to him had convinced him that it was a 
corker. 

“I think Hatch must be a wonderful boxer 
— as good as most professionals,” said Ger- 
shom. “He makes everything so clear to me 
that I’m really catching on, but just the same 
I can’t hit him. Why, he can drop his hands 
entirely and still get away.” 

The conversation drifted lazily from one sub- 
ject to another, but as they got well out from 
shore and flat after flat was left behind, a com- 
panionable silence of anticipation fell on them. 
They were rowing now like well-balanced ma- 
chines and the dory shot along swiftly in the 
almost slack water. By and by Tutt, who was 


A STIFF FIGHT 


91 


rowing bow oar, let his blade trail with a silken 
rustle. “Here we are, Gersh,” he exclaimed. 
“Let her run now.” 

The oars chuckled in the water and the dory 
set her nose into the yielding Broadback. 
Gershom gathered up his gun and decoys and 
stepped over the gunwale, followed by Brier. 
“Mind you have the dory back here in a couple 
of hours,” he said. 

“Sure,” returned Tutt confidently, and he 
started off, quartering across the bay in the 
direction of the little piece of high marsh called 
Sanderling Island. 

Broadback bar was a rounded hump of gray 
mud a gunshot long and almost a perfect oval 
in shape. At its upper end the boys had sunk 
an old sugar cask, and when Gershom had 
bailed this out with the tin dipper kept in the 
cask he set out his wooden decoys in a seductive 
array at the edge of the bar. Brier crouched 
behind the rim of the cask as Gershom stepped 
into it and loaded his double-barreled twelve 
gauge. 

“Now let ’em come, eh, old man?” said Ger- 
shom. 


CHAPTER VII 


TIME AND TIDE DO NOT WAIT 

The half-hour that must elapse before the first 
of the flight might be expected would have 
seemed long to a less experienced gunner than 
Gershom. That interval of waiting was al- 
ways a pleasure to him. It sharpened his an- 
ticipation and he loved nature so well that he 
was never tired of being alone with her. 

The wind had died down completely. The 
sand-ribbed expanse of the bay lay as placid 
as an inland lake in that restful period between 
lowest ebb and the birth of the tide, like 
some vast creature relaxed in sleep. Not a 
fish broke the prismatic mirror and no bird 
moved a disturbing wing against the purplish 
haze. All had settled upon some feeding 
ground of mud or marsh. Only the tiny black 
snails that peopled the bar were in slow mo- 
tion. As they slid ceaselessly about, their lit- 
tle shining trails gleamed like veins of silver. 

The tide had already turned outside, but it 

92 


TIME AND TIDE DO NOT WAIT 93 

was some time before its pulse made itself felt 
through the narrow entrance of the harbor. A 
faint easterly breeze heralded its advance. The 
water began to change color and darken and 
talk crisply as it swelled in the channels. 
Shoals of gudgeon ruffled the shallows. 
Smoky-plumaged mackerel gulls rose from the 
lower bars and wheeled gracefully up the bay. 
Presently Gershom saw a wavy, hurrying line 
of black dots, high in air, coming toward him. 

He sank down like a jack-in-the-box into 
the cask and his thumb cocked the hammers of 
his gun with two musical clicks. Brier 
crouched tensely in the mud, his keen eyes roll- 
ing upward under their shaggy brows. 

Gershom could hear the nasal tweeting of 
the old drake leader. The flock had seen the 
decoys. The call came louder, more nasal. 
The ducks took it up with their coarser notes, 
and the bunch rushed downward. There was 
a keen whistling sound from taut wings over- 
head, a nerve-stretching moment of suspense, 
and then the low gossipy chatter as the flock 
swung in to the silent invitation of the stools. 

Gershom leaped up and his eye flashed along 
the brown barrels. As the double report 


94 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


boomed across the bay, two fat black ducks 
collapsed and fell with a splash into the water. 
“Go fetch, Brier,” he said, and the Airedale, 
with a grim little whimper of eagerness, raced 
across the bar. 

As the tide rose the shore birds, driven from 
the lower flats, came scurrying by. The 
shorter-legged sandpipers and chunky little 
sanderlings led the flight. Then came the 
robin snipe and plover, broad-headed fellows 
with mottled or ebony breasts, uttering their 
mellow, far-reaching calls. The tattlers, whose 
long stiltlike legs made them the last to be 
driven from the flooded bars, brought up the 
rear. Many of them drifted by within easy 
range, but ammunition was too valuable to be 
spent on such inferior game. 

Gershom had a fair-sized bag of ducks when 
the sun began to sink below the shore dunes, 
proclaiming the end of the shooting. The tide 
had risen well up about Broadback, only that 
end in which the cask was sunk being exposed. 
It was time for Bill and the dory to show up. 
Gershom could see no sign of them in the chill 
evening mist that was beginning to curdle be- 
tween him and the yellow marshes. 



“TWO FAT BLACK DUCKS COLLAPSED AND FELL WITH 

A SPLASH.” 





TIME AND TIDE DO NOT WAIT 95 


“I’m afraid we’ll get our feet wet, Brier,” 
he said. He had brought in his decoys and 
now he sat on the edge of the cask kicking his 
feet in their thin sneakers against the staves to 
keep them warm . 

There was a twelve-foot rise and fall of wa- 
ter in Eastmarsh bay. Owing to its peculiar 
formation, the tide was held in check at first, 
but when it had once really overcome the re- 
sistance at the entrance it came boiling in with 
almost the insistence of a mill-race. Gershom 
saw the current on the east side sweep by rut- 
ted and seamed by its own force. The long, 
oily ripples closed about the head of the bar 
like lips, and foot by foot it was swallowed up. 

The mist lay like cream between him and 
Sanderling Island, and wavering streamlets 
were already feeling their blind, cautious way 
past the bar. Still he felt no particular anx- 
iety. The bay was like his own farmyard — 
one of its known boundaries. He had fished 
in it and shot over it all his life, and its moods 
had long ceased to convey any direct sense of 
danger. 

Presently Brier whined, and looking down 
Gershom perceived that the Airedale was 


96 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


standing in a slowly increasing puddle of brine. 
“Bill seems to be taking things pretty easy,” 
he said. “We’ll try to hurry him up a bit, old 
man.” 

He fired two shots into the foggy dusk, and 
then a third, the familiar signal among the 
duck hunters. Muffled by the thick mist, the 
reports boomed across the water with a hollow, 
cheerless sound that died without an echo. No 
response came from the direction of the island. 
Five minutes passed — ten — fifteen — and still 
no signal or sign of the dory. Then, as Ger- 
shom listened with his brows drawing together, 
several lisping streams ran over the edge of 
the cask. 

Gershom glanced abstractedly at them for a 
moment. They widened, each trickle broad- 
ening to a thin sheet, and then from all sides 
the united water poured in hissing about his 
legs. The rangy Airedale braced himself and 
looked up at his master with faithful eyes. 

Gershom stepped out on the shoal. A foot 
of water raced over it with a force that tugged 
like hands at his ankles. F or the first time he 
began to feel alarmed. Timing his shots he 
fired, reloaded and shot again until his slender 


TIME AND TIDE DO NOT WAIT 97 

supply of shells was exhausted, but save for 
the dead boom of the reports absolute silence 
brooded over the bay. 

“Brier, old man, what are we going to do?” 
he said, and his jaw dropped a little. “What’s 
become of Bill!” 

In the thickening dusk the water shone with 
a faint phosphorescent radiance. Little bub- 
bles and knots of seaweed roughened its sur- 
face. Inch by inch it mounted up Ger shorn’s 
legs and lifted Brier from his, but the Airedale 
was a wonderful swimmer. He circled round 
his master, whining and evidently puzzled by 
their situation. Gershom peered anxiously 
into the mist, swaying as the pressure of the 
current grew more formidable. He could 
hardly keep his feet. 

“Bill! Bill!” he shouted. Then, after an 
anxious pause, “We’ll have to swim for it. 
Brier.” 

He dropped his gun butt down into the cask 
and tied the bunch of ducks to an anchor of one 
of the decoys. A night heron uttered his ex- 
plosive guttural croak high overhead. Ger- 
shom felt his feet slipping. Then the tide, as 
if tired of playing with him longer, lifted him 


98 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


to his toes and swept him gently from the bar. 

The mainland lay three miles away. Ger- 
shom knew that he could not swim that dis- 
tance in the chill fall water. His only hope 
was to take advantage of the tide and drift 
with it as far as he could toward Sanderling 
or some of the other areas of high marsh. Like 
all the boys of Eastmarsh, he had faced his 
share of the fierce and sudden storms that 
swept that projecting bit of coast. With 
sound planks under one and a firm hand on the 
tiller wind and wave are adversaries that can 
be fought, and to the good boatman there is ex- 
hilaration in the battle. The roar of the gale, 
the leap and crash of seas are things to set the 
red blood stirring ; but to be hurried along like 
a log in the icy grasp of the water, unable to 
use either hand or eye to much purpose, draws 
hard on one’s stock of courage. 

Gershom put all doubts resolutely from him. 
At intervals he called loudly, and then listened 
with straining ears for an answering cry or the 
chug of Bill’s oars. Presently he turned on 
his back to rest his limbs and floated, staring 
up at the blanket of fog. In a few minutes 
the chill of the water struck to his bones and 


TIME AND TIDE DO NOT WAIT 99 


forced him to resume swimming. He knew 
that the dory must pass near him in taking 
the shortest course to Broadback, but as the 
minutes dragged by he began to fear that some 
serious accident had happened to Tutt. Per- 
haps the dory would never come — perhaps it 
had broken from its moorings and left Tutt 
stranded on Sanderling! 

Panic began to creep over him. He called 
again and again, but the only response was 
Brier’s puzzled whines. Half benumbed and 
now thoroughly frightened, he paused in his 
stroke to listen. His tired legs sank. Some- 
thing yielding yet tenacious seemed to quiver 
around his ankles, clutching at them as he 
kicked. A shock ran through him and he 
spurted forward like a frightened fish. 

A hundred writhing ribbons tried to wind 
themselves about his legs like slimy tenta- 
cles. The tide had brought him to the edge 
of the great eel-grass flat off Sanderling 
Island, and though it ran slower here, it was 
sweeping him steadily toward the center of this 
deadly trap. Somehow he had left the chan- 
nel. He knew his peril well enough and how 
helpless the strongest swimmer is when en- 


100 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


meshed in this hideous growth, so weak when 
taken strand by strand but so powerful in 
union. 

He struck out wildly, but he could not free 
his feet from the many-stranded web, which 
though beaten down for the moment, rose with 
renewed life in the agitated water. As the 
upper layers separated he could feel others lift- 
ing their groping blades, eager to pull him 
down. All his science and coolness deserted 
him. He beat the water frantically, churning 
in a pathetic circle. At times he seemed to 
clear a small space about him. Then the grass 
would close in thicker than before, and each 
time it snarled itself about his legs he found 
less strength to fight it. 

Gershom’s efforts grew feeble. The slimy 
ribbons worked up insidiously about his hips 
and his body gradually sank deeper. A little 
water ran into his open mouth. He coughed it 
up with a sharp sensation of pain. Again he 
gulped in the cold brine, and this time he ex- 
pelled it with less distress. His ears hummed 
as they did after Collingwood’s knock-down 
blow. A feeling of lethargy stole over him. 
The gripping fright receded before it. He 


TIME AND TIDE DO NOT WAIT 101 


sank without much of a struggle to keep him- 
self up, but Brier, beating the water violently 
with his forepaws, thrust his big muzzle against 
Gershom’s shoulder and tried to seize the cloth 
in his teeth. 

Roused for a second, Gershom fought for his 
life again, but the lethargy would creep over 
him. He was conscious that Brier was bark- 
ing hoarsely. Then he thought he heard other 
sounds, loud but confused. He tried to listen 
to them, but again he began to sink sleepily. 
The next thing he knew something had seized 
him vigorously and he was bumping against 
a hard, dark wall. It shot through his dazed 
brain that this was the dory. 

He was not so far gone that he was a dead 
weight, and Bill presently dragged him into 
the boat and helped Brier over the gunwale. 
“Oh, Gersh!” cried Bill. “You’re alive!” 
His voice broke into a sob and he shook as if 
he had a chill. “The dory drifted away from 
me, Gersh, and I was hours finding her in the 
high sedge. If it hadn’t been for Brier I’d 
have passed you. I heard him barking off on 
the flats.” 

“Good old Brier,” said Gershom in a husky 


102 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


whisper. “There, don’t thump me any more, 
Bill. I’m all right.” 

Presently he felt well enough to sit up and 
caress the dripping Airedale. “A dory always 
gets away at the wrong time. I don’t blame 
you. Bill; but that was a close call. Good old 
Brierkins.” He drew the long, wet head 
against his shoulder. Then he added: “I’ll 
take the oars now and we’ll row back to the 
bar for my gun and the birds. I see you did 
pretty well, too.” 

“Do you think you’d better?” asked Tutt. 

“Yes. I’m cold. It isn’t far, but it seemed 
miles a little while ago, I can tell you.” 

They found the cask without any difficulty, 
for the anchored decoys marked its location, 
and having fished out the gun and got the rest 
of the dunnage aboard they started for home, 
Gershom feeling quite himself again. Poor 
Tutt was very sober. He felt that his care- 
lessness had nearly cost his friend’s life. “I’ll 
never be the one to take the dory again,” he 
said, as they reached the Foy farmyard. 
“You’ve been a trump about it, Gersh.” 

“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about,” 
laughed Gershom. “It’s liable to happen any 


TIME AND TIDE DO NOT WAIT 103 


time. I’m safe at home, so what’s the use of 
speaking about it?” 

Such accidents were not at all uncommon 
along the coast, and Gershom, now that it was 
over, thought very little about it. He spoke 
of it so lightly the next morning that Mr. Foy 
did not realize that his son had been in any 
danger; but Mrs. Foy, with a mother’s keen 
perceptions, knew better. By dint of quiet 
questioning she learned the truth. She knew 
what was to be expected of the bay. Gershom 
had had his share of accidents, like most of the 
Eastmarsh boys of his age, but his mother 
feared his adventurous spirit; and although 
he had declared his intention of becoming a 
farmer, like his father, she dreaded lest the 
appeal of the sea should win him in the end. 
She talked to him seriously that morning, 
hoping to make him say that he would give up 
ducking and turn his mind to more practical 
matters. 

“If you would only use your energy on land, 
I know your father would be glad to give you 
an acre or two for your own,” she said. “You 
could make a great deal more out of that work 
than you can from the sale of game.” 


104 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“Yes, I know, mother,” replied Gershom. 
“Next year, when I am in the Academy and 
can take that course in agriculture, I shall give 
up shooting — at least, I shan’t go often.” 

“I wish you would promise me not to go to 
the goose stand with Jim Blair.” 

“Oh, but I promised. There’s no danger 
there, mother. It’s on the solid bar. Mr. 
Blair lives in a regular house — a shanty — and 
all the shooting is done from behind the breast- 
works. Why, it’s as safe as our yard.” 

It was not often that Gershom had a chance 
to visit the goose stand, for Blair was not a 
sociable man and preferred, as his neighbors 
said, “to hog all the shooting himself.” Ed 
was not fond of the sport. He did not even 
own a gun, much to his father’s disgust. Once 
every fortnight he rowed to the bar with 
groceries and fresh eggs for the stand, usually 
spending the night and returning early the 
next morning. The Academy was soon to 
close for the Thanksgiving holidays, and as the 
season was prime for a good flight Blair had 
sent word that he should eat his Thanksgiving 
dinner alone on the bar. Jim was to take him 
down some homemade dainties the day after, 


TIME AND TIDE DO NOT WAIT 105 


and he had secured a reluctant invitation for 
Gershom to accompany him and try a day at 
goose shooting — if the uncertain birds hap- 
pened to be flying. 

To hunt the big gray Canada goose it was 
necessary in the first place to have a suitable 
location in the line of flight, and all those in or 
near Eastmarsh had long been taken up by 
clubs or individuals. In the second place one 
had to have a stand or house in which one could 
live with some degree of comfort, as there was 
no telling when the birds might come, and the 
successful gunner was the one who kept the 
most vigilant watch. In addition there was 
the little army of live decoys to raise and feed 
— geese are large eaters — and the rafts of 
blocks to make and keep in repair; the heavy 
guns, the ammunition, the furnishings of the 
house, etc. It was a sport entirely beyond 
Gershom’s means, and he had been looking for- 
ward to this trip with the keenest interest. 

Before the week was over there were signs 
that indicated the advance of a storm. East- 
marsh did not need to read the newspapers to 
tell them that. They were a weatherwise com- 
munity. The oldest prophet, who was inva- 


106 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


riably the most pessimistic, began to shake his 
head and say that folks who were going visit- 
ing on Thanksgiving had better stay at home 
or start early. Gershom began to get anx- 
ious. Thanksgiving with its turkey and hosts 
of substantial goodies was not half so impor- 
tant in his eye as the day he hoped to spend at 
the stand. If a storm fell it would be impos- 
sible to reach the bar, and in the meantime the 
threat of it was hurrying the gray geese south. 
He could hear the honking wedges streaming 
through the cold, dark sky as he lay in bed at 
night. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A NIGHT SWIM FOR LIFE 

Thanksgiving Day dawned with an angry 
sky and a thin whirl of snow that fell intermit- 
tently all day, but the big storm did not ma- 
terialize. The following day the weather 
looked uglier and the prophets took new cour- 
age. Both boys had chores to do that occu- 
pied them all the morning, and Gershom was 
in a panic lest the wind should rise and render 
the bay impassable. No noticeable change 
took place, however. When, late in the after- 
noon, he and Ed departed in the loaded dory, 
wind and scud were streaming high up across 
a gray sky, but the water was smooth and 
black. 

“There’s a storm coming sure,” said Ed, 
“and it looks like a corker.” 

Gershom agreed and put more beef into his 
stroke. The dory shot ahead rapidly over the 
oily water. The bay wore a strange and 
gloomy aspect. There was no color or life in 

107 


108 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


its slow swells. It looked opaque and sullen; 
but the roar of the surf on the outer bar toward 
which they headed was very heavy for this 
period of the tide. Not a bird was to be seen 
anywhere except for a massed flock of gulls on 
the inner curve of the sand-pit. 

An hour of rowing brought the dory within 
sight of Blair’s well-concealed shanty on the 
inner side of the bar, facing the town. It 
was a low, windowless building, completely 
thatched with dry sedge, its rear wall set in 
one of the crested dunes from which, at a little 
distance, it was indistinguishable. A hundred 
feet of thatched breastworks ran across its 
front and projected like fins on either side, 
concealing the goose pens and the aisle along 
which Blair paced while on watch. 

The rough shingle in front had been re- 
moved and a gently sloping beach of clean sand 
made. On this the anchor geese stood, shak- 
ing their leather tethers and dipping restless 
bills into their cans of fresh water. In the 
screened pens on the dune the gosling flyers 
could be vaguely distinguished as they trotted 
to and fro before the bars, calling anxiously 
now and then to their parents on the beach. 


A NIGHT SWIM FOR LIFE 109 

From the coops behind the breastworks some 
old gander occasionally trumpeted sonorously. 
The boys could now see Blair, himself, near 
the look-out chair. He waved his hand at 
them, indicating the point at which he wished 
the dory to be left. 

As the boys came along the beach on foot 
with their bundles, Blair swung the little gate 
open and silently led the way into the shanty. 

“Here’s the mail, dad, and the grub,” said 
Ed. “How are you?” 

“Middling,” replied Enos. “How’s 
mother?” 

“All right. We’re going to have a storm, 
aren’t we?” 

“I guess so. It looks like weather.” 

The boys sat down by the bare deal table and 
Gershom looked about speculatively while 
Blair opened the mail. The room was lighted 
by a lamp hanging in an iron bracket. Be- 
sides the chairs, table and stove there was no 
furniture; the sleeping accommodations being 
mere shelves nailed to the rear wall. A rack 
of guns shining with oil stood near the door. 
The room was full of the sour odor of ferment- 
ing sedge and stale smoke. Gershom did not 


110 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


object to it. The place fascinated him, but 
an unconscious expression of distaste began to 
settle on Ed’s face. 

His father, looking over the top of the letter 
he had been reading, perceived it and smiled 
ironically. “You think you’re too good for 
this thing, don’t you, sonny?” he said. “But 
here’s a man, a city lawyer, too, who says he 
wants to spend two weeks with me. He ain’t 
so finicky as you.” 

Ed flushed. “That’s not the reason, dad. 
I like farming better than shooting, that’s all.” 

“Not by a jugful it ain’t! You think I 
waste my time here and live like a pig. Don’t 
geese bring money in the market? And 
here’s a man willing to pay me board. There’s 
others, too. I guess I can support mother. 
It’s tough I should have a son with no more 
sporting spirit than an old setting hen. Here’s 
Gershom; he’s got some spirit, he has. It’s a 
wonder you dare to row across the bay.” 

“You mean you think I’m a coward, dad?” 

Enos Blair tossed the letter on the table and 
went to the cupboard without answering. He 
took down three plates and a handful of knives 
and forks. “Take the beans out of the oven 


A NIGHT SWIM FOR LIFE 


111 


and get the bread,” he said. “You’ll have 
to cut one of the loaves your mother sent. 
Undo those pies, Gershom. We’ll have sup- 
per early.” 

Relieved to have the conversation take a less 
embarrassing turn, Gershom helped lay the 
table and spread out the various good things 
Mrs. Blair had sent. It was a rather silent 
meal so far as the three at the table were con- 
cerned, but the room was full of sound. The 
wind had begun to roar in the thatch overhead 
and the thunder of the incoming surf had 
grown heavier. 

“There ought to be birds flying to-night — 
if it isn’t too rough for them,” said Mr. Blair. 
“I’ll take a look around while I feed the geese.” 

Presently he returned, white with snow from 
head to foot. “This is a storm,” he remarked. 
He stood for a moment in the middle of the 
room, shedding a rain of snow water. “Don’t 
know as I ever did hear the surf so heavy and 
the tide won’t be high for four hours yet. It’s 
blowing straight out. There won’t be any 
geese to-night. The wind would rip the feath- 
ers off them.” 

He removed his reefer and heavy shoes and 


112 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


stretched himself comfortably on one of the 
bunks. “Read some news out of one of the 
papers, Ed/’ he said. “Your eyes are 
younger than mine, but I’ll bet I can see a 
goose farther than you can.” 

While Gershom played one game after an- 
other of solitaire, Ed droned the news aloud 
in sing-song tones, his voice often drowned by 
the crash of some huge roller leaping upon the 
beach. Though the little house was sheltered 
by the sand-dune behind it, the wind swooped 
down upon it and shook it until the dishes in 
the cupboard rattled like castanets. All at 
once a sprinkle of sand began to drool through 
the roof, peppering the table and sputtering in 
the lamp, whose indignant flame threatened to 
go out. 

“The wind must be eating into the dune 
pretty lively,” said Blair. “I never saw the 
sand drip through before. We’d better turn 
in, boys, in self-defense.” 

Turning in consisted of crawling between 
the scratchy blankets with all clothes on. Ger- 
shom had the full benefit of the sour thatch in 
his upper bunk, and he could hear the wind 
slash through it violently with the hiss of a 


A NIGHT SWIM FOR LIFE 


113 


scythe blade. Sleep was a long time in com- 
ing, and it was not a steady slumber when it 
came. Gershom’s ear was too new to such a 
din. He could generally hear the distant roll 
of the surf when in his own bedroom, but this 
was like being in a ship at sea. Each time he 
awoke he could hear the strong, confident 
breathing of Mr. Blair, who slept on undis- 
turbed by the storm which seemed to Gershom 
to be increasing steadily in power. 

“Are you awake, Ed?” he asked once. 
There was no answer, and he settled back into 
his nest of dampish blankets, resolved not to 
pay any more attention to the sounds outside. 
An extraordinary heavy rush of water up the 
outside beach roused him again. He raised 
himself on his elbow, listening. Nothing but 
the dunes seemed to keep back the great 
rollers. The house sat, as it were, under the 
black arch of the surf. 

The knowledge that this was actually so 
came suddenly in unmistakable terms. A 
long, overwhelming roar announced the rush 
of a wind-driven roller up the beach. It 
crashed against the dune with a dull boom, 
and a heavy weight struck the roof of the shack 


114 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


such a blow that it lurched drunkenly. As 
Gershom started up in his bunk, one leg swing- 
ing over the edge, crackling streams of water 
poured through the strained roof. He 
bounded out and collided with Mr. Blair, who 
had just rolled out of his blankets. Ed was 
awake and called out that he would light a 
match, but as he scratched one on its box an- 
other solid, racking blow thundered over their 
heads. The roof cracked with a sharp sound, 
and an avalanche of foamy water roared down. 
Through the broken roof Gershom could hear 
the clash of the elements as if he had pulled 
cotton wool from his ears. It was a fearful 
turmoil of sounds, each with its own degree of 
wildness. 

“We must get out of this,” exclaimed Mr. 
Blair. “There’s the dory; it’s on the lee side 
— or the Pine Dunes. Wait, boys. Stand 
over here by the back wall. Wait, now.” 

Two great walls of water crashed up the bar 
at their backs, laving the dune in their foam, 
and then came the third, slower, more majes- 
tic at first, but gathering thunder as it ad- 
vanced. Just as it struck the dune, Blair 
clutched the boys and hurried them to the door. 



“THE ROOF CRACKED WITH A SHARP SOUND, AND AN 
AVALANCHE OF FOAMY WATER ROARED DOWN.” 




























































A NIGHT SWIM FOR LIFE 


115 


“Out with you, quick !” he cried. And then: 
“Down now, close to the bank.” 

A hissing mass of water curved over the top 
of the dune and fell upon the already shaken 
little house. It reeled on its slight supports 
and then sidled down the beach with a crack- 
ling of timbers. The light breastworks went 
down like matchwood before its charge. Blair 
rose, shaking himself like a wet dog. 

“Everything’s gone, birds and all,” he ex- 
claimed. “Boys, this is no place for us, but 
we can’t reach the bridge. The bar’s nearly 
all low to the north’ard. If she can break over 
here she must be running clean across above 
us.” 

“There’s Pine Dunes,” said Gershom. 
“It’s high enough there if we can make it.” 

“We’ve got to try anyway,” replied Blair. 
“There’s a bad low place just this side, but it 
ain’t so very wide. Get down, boys! Squat!” 

The roller roared up the dune and cut away 
its crest, seething down upon them in a cata- 
ract that spun them, clinging to each other’s 
hands, down the gullied beach. As the water 
hissed from under them, Blair sprang to his 
feet. “Go for the dory,” he said. “Maybe 


116 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


we can make the Pines in her. The bay can’t 
be so bad.” 

Crouching and stumbling, they ran through 
the wind to the cove in the beach grass where 
the dory lay. A tug on her long anchor rope 
proved that she was riding buoyantly out in the 
blackness, and they pulled her in until Blair 
could seize her bobbing bow. Ed tossed in 
the anchor and they tumbled hastily aboard, 
the rope trailing. Before they could ship the 
oars, they were swept out on the bay, swoop- 
ing and diving dizzily. 

“Get her head round!” roared Blair. “Be 
quick about it.” But under the grip of wind 
and tossing water she was unmanageable for 
the moment, and when Ed threw all his weight 
on the oar the shaft snapped with a vicious 
kick, precipitating him into his father’s lap 
and throwing Blair’s oars out of the tholepins. 
Ger shorn tried to catch Ed’s other oar, but it 
was too late. The dory yawed on the crest of 
a wave and then fell into the trough, side on. 
All three of them sprawled on the leeward 
rail. It was too much for the buoyancy of 
the dory. Her rail went under and she turned 
turtle, throwing them into the seas. 


A NIGHT SWIM FOR LIFE 


in 

All were good swimmers, especially Ed, but 
none of them had ever had to swim for his life 
in such a gale. In the confusion and the dark- 
ness, the dory was lost sight of. It would 
have been folly to waste a single precious mo- 
ment in search of her. Fortunately they were 
all together, and all knew that they must not 
become separated. 

“Face the wind. Swim for the bar.” 

It was Ed’s voice, and Blair and Gershom 
recognized the wisdom of the advice. They 
were not very far out, but the wind was of hur- 
ricane force and the water had a terrific swing. 
Close together they swam in. Suddenly Blair 
uttered a smothered cry. “My leg!” he 
gasped. “It’s hurt. Go in if you can, boys.” 

“Only a few strokes, dad!” shouted Ed. He 
swam to his father, and Gershom closed in on 
the other side. There was no time for ques- 
tioning. “Put your hand on my shoulder,” 
said Ed. 

“And on mine,” encouraged Gershom. 
“We’ll make it.” 

That was hard swimming. Linked to- 
gether, the three lost much of their buoyancy. 
The gale cut off the combs of the waves and 


118 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


drove them like shot into their faces. Some- 
times they could not rise with the quick swells 
and had to take them head on, choked and buf- 
feted. The pressure on the boys’ shoulders 
grew so heavy that their strokes lagged, and 
the long muscles of their thighs ached excruci- 
atingly. But they held on grittily with un- 
beaten spirit, and at length their feet kicked 
hard sand. 

As they staggered through the shallows, 
Blair limping on his wrenched leg, a wave 
swept across the bar and came at them in a 
rush of seething water that rose to their knees 
and almost hurled them backwards. The place 
was clearly untenable. Blair groaned when he 
saw that they must seek higher ground at once. 
“If I hadn’t hurt my leg when the dory cap- 
sized!” he cried. “I don’t know as I can make 
Pine Dunes, boys.” 

They assured him that he could with their 
help, and without delay they half dragged, 
half led him along between them. The surf 
was leaping the hog back bar along its whole 
length with swift flares of foam that made a 
ghastly gleam in the blackness. Twice they 
were caught and thrown by a charging wave 


A NIGHT SWIM FOR LIFE 


119 


and had to pull Blair to his feet, limp and al- 
most spent. The boys forgot their own fears 
in the fight to save him, and Enos, humbled 
and grateful, grimly kept back any expression 
of the pain that racked him. 

At his best Blair was not as strong a swim- 
mer as either of the boys, but their grit roused 
him, and he stumbled along determinedly 
through the flying foam and sand until they 
reached the sunken area beyond which rose the 
low bluffs crowned with stunted pitch pines 
from which they took their name. The water 
ran through here in an angry ribbon, white and 
tossing. But the surf was breaking also where 
they stood with an increasing violence, and, 
feeling his father hesitate, Ed urged him for- 
ward. “Come on, dad,” he said. “Put your 
hands on our shoulders. It isn’t far. I can 
see the pines.” 

They chose what seemed to be a propitious 
moment, and plunged in to begin the fight 
with the icy water. For a while they made 
good progress, but half way over Blair gave 
out. The boys felt his grip slacken, and 
guessed intuitively that he had some thought 
of self-sacrifice in his mind. In alarm they 


120 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

shouted to him to hang on. They could make 
it; they were about there. Blair, glad to be- 
lieve them, hung on with renewed courage; 
and they struggled on, sagging always to the 
west under the drive of wind and current. 

Swept almost beyond the bank on the other 
side, they succeeded in reaching the bar at the 
foot of the bluffs at last, and, seizing the tough 
beach grass, clung to it until their breathing 
became easier. A few more yards and they 
were out of the water and the teeth of the wind, 
with the pines soughing lugubriously above 
them. 

“We made it, didn’t we?” gasped Ed. 

Enos put his hand on his son’s shoulder. 

“You did— and Gershom,” he said. “I’d 
have gone down but for you boys. The 
stand’s gone and the poor geese, and I guess 
my goosing days are, too. I’ll stick to the 
farm after this, Ed.” 

“Oh, father! Will you?” cried Ed. 

“I guess so. Dry land will look pretty good 
to me after this.” 

The thought flashed across Gershom’s mind 
that now Ed could surely go to the Academy, 
and he was glad that he had had a share in 
bringing this about; but they were all so cold 


A NIGHT SWIM FOR LIFE 


121 


and weary that sentiment soon gave way to 
the desire to find some sort of refuge from the 
gale. They crawled up the sloping face of 
the bluff, exploring its hollows as well as they 
could in the dark, and finally they discovered 
a snug cave near the upper edge. It was well 
shielded from the wind, and when the boys had 
thrown some armsful of pine needles and dead 
grass into it they led Blair into the nest. He 
had some dry matches in his pocket case, and 
soon a bright little fire of pine branches was 
shedding its light and warmth upon them. 

“I tell you what I am going to do,” ex- 
claimed Gershom, when his clothes were par- 
tially dried. “I am going on to the station 
and send one of the men back for Mr. Blair. 
It isn’t far, and a warm house and a bed are 
better than this hole.” 

He declined to argue the matter, declaring 
he felt fine and could make the trip in no time. 
The station was not far away and the bar south 
of Pine Dunes was high enough to hold back 
the breakers. With a wave of his hand Ger- 
shom trotted off along the ledge of sand on the 
bay side, under the lee of the chain of dunes. 
In less than twenty minutes he had reached the 
station and was telling his story to Captain 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


122 

Jim Hayes and his stalwart crew of life-savers. 
The captain at once dispatched Arthur White 
to the aid of Mr. Blair. 

“I guess you’ve had an experience you won’t 
forget,” he said. “I never knew the sea to 
break over the bar this way before since I’ve 
been here. It’s a terrible night and it will be 
bad weather to-morrow. I guess you’ll have 
to stay with us a day or two. I can’t spare any 
men to set you back while she holds like this. 
I’ll telephone to central, though, to send a mes- 
sage that you’re here, so your folks won’t 
worry.” 

The big, spotlessly clean living-room of the 
station, with its glowing stove, seemed to tired 
Gershom a most delightful place to spend a 
day in. He was drowsily content after the 
message had gone, and so were Blair and Ed, 
when Arthur White brought them in some- 
what later. Captain Hayes gave Blair some 
liniment and had beds prepared for them in 
the sleeping-room upstairs and they retired 
early, while the life-savers sat up over their 
pipes and cards, discussing the chances of a 
wreck occurring in their section before morn- 
ing. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE WRECK ON BLACKFISH 

The worst of the great storm blew itself out 
that night, but what would ordinarily have 
been considered a terrific gale raged all the 
next day. Mr. Blair’s wrenched leg hurt him 
considerably and he was inclined to be peevish 
when Captain Hayes ordered him to lie abed. 
Ed read a few stories to him from the hetero- 
geneous collection of magazines, and played 
card games with Gershom to while away the 
time, and the crew told stories or roasted 
“Dutchy,” the newest recruit. Gershom knew 
the big blond Smiley well and liked him. The 
Smiley farm lay about half a mile west of the 
Foy place, and in spite of the difference be- 
tween their ages he and “Dutchy” had been 
good friends. 

“Say, it’s fierce the way they roast you,” he 
found a chance to say. “I wouldn’t stand it. 
You could take a couple of them and knock 
their heads together without half trying.” 

123 


124 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“That would make me popular, I guess,” 
grinned Dutchy. “It’ll wear off. I don’t 
mind it.” But this was not quite true. Un- 
der his phlegmatic exterior Smiley was pretty 
raw. 

That evening, when his turn to go on patrol 
arrived, the roasting recommenced. It had 
begun to snow a little and it was much colder, 
two facts which seemed to afford the crew a 
good deal of amusement. “Better tie your 
bonnet strings,” said one. “She’s singing her 
top note all right.” “On your way, Dutchy. 
If you see a wreck pull it ashore,” jeered an- 
other, comfortably slippered and enjoying a 
pipe before the stove. 

Dutchy opened his mouth once or twice to 
reply, but he was not quick at repartee, so he 
opened the door and let the inrush of chill wind 
speak for him. Gershom had been hurrying 
into a spare suit of oilskins, and now he an- 
nounced that he was going to patrol the beat 
with Dutchy. He slipped out quickly with- 
out listening to the remonstrances, and dashing 
down the gully between the dunes joined Smi- 
ley. 

The wind struck them here with its full force. 


THE WRECK ON BLACKFISH 125 


It took stout limbs to face the long beat in the 
cold, blast-swept dark, but the best staff was a 
consciousness that it was an errand of mercy; 
that human lives might be dependent upon the 
clearness of their vision and the keenness of 
their ears. The noise of wind and sea made it 
impossible to talk. Side by side they pushed 
forward with stiff shoulders and flapping oil- 
skins. 

There was no light in the black sky, but the 
sea gave out a kind of ghostly glare that il- 
luminated the ragged combs of the nearest 
breakers. These were daunting enough in 
themselves, but behind these were miles upon 
miles of others, rushing, rearing and exploding 
in the dark with the voices of cannon. The 
air pulsed heavily with their vast broadsides, 
but in spite of them and the jarring crash of 
the surf upon the beach the walkers could dis- 
tinguish the lesser but still more ominous note 
of the sea rasping across the dangerous bar 
outside. 

As they worked farther south along the bar 
the wind became an avalanche of air, rushing 
landward as if it meant to sweep the earth 
clean. They had to dig their toes into the 


126 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


beach to keep their balance. The spray drove 
into their faces and a mist of sand hissed along 
the beach like steam. The guzzle a mile below 
the station was a mad, impassable caldron, 
and they had to swerve in behind the dunes 
through the flattened sedge and straining mats 
of wild pea till they came out on the high 
marsh, where the brittle shells of dead king- 
crabs crackled under their boots. 

They swung out after that, safely past the 
guzzle, passing under the station telephone 
wire which sung in the wind with a shrill wail. 
The bar bent somewhat to the east at this point, 
and instead of crashing solidly upon it the surf 
struck it rakingly and long threatening 
tongues swept up its side with a scythe-like 
swing that had force enough to knock a man 
off his feet. They dodged two or three of 
these vicious waves and then turned back to 
the dunes again. It would not be easy to walk 
along the undulating spine with it's snarled 
mane of sedge, but at any rate they would be 
out of reach of the seas. 

The dunes seemed to be melting away under 
the rasp of the gale. Streams of flying sand 
rattled against their oilskins, and in the first 


THE WRECK ON BLACKFISH 127 


dip a cloud enveloped them that stung like 
needle-points. Half blinded by it they toiled 
up the next rise, helping themselves by claw- 
ing at the sedge, and reached the crest in time 
to see the black sky cut by the rapid red trail 
of a rocket. It was torn and wiped out so 
soon by the gale that for a moment they be- 
lieved it an optical illusion. But Dutchy 
pulled out a Coston light and some wind-proof 
matches and began to force the butt of the 
former into the sand. A second crimson gash 
wriggled up above Blackfish Shoal, and 
Dutchy touched a lighted match to the fuse 
that sputtered like a cat and then flowered into 
a blinding glow that illuminated the beach and 
the foam-laced sea. 

“She’s on Blackfish!” exclaimed Dutchy. 
“God help ’em, the poor devils.” 

They were nearer the station than they were 
to the signal house, so there was nothing for 
it but to turn back and run like deer, the wind 
snapping the half-frozen oilskins about their 
cold legs. 

When they burst into the station house Ger- 
shom’s strength and breath were gone. “A 
wreck on Blackfish!” panted Dutchy. The 


128 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

men leaped up. One rang a gong. Those 
who had retired came running down stairs, 
dressing as they came. “Here’s a mess!” cried 
Hayes, plunging into his long boots. “Blake, 
you get Dolly. Lively now, boys. Put in the 
breeches-buoy.” 

Booted and pea- jacketed, the crew rushed 
into the boatroom and thrust the double doors 
back. The big, white surf -boat rolled out in 
its truck and almost bunted into Dolly as she 
stood waiting, her tail and mane blowing wildly 
in the wind. The braces were snapped on. 
Hayes shouted to Dolly and off they went, the 
crew pushing and Hayes guiding the mare 
through the darkness. In the blaze of light 
from the open door of the station stood Mr. 
Blair and Sam I very, who was on duty as cook 
for the week. 

Only Captain Hayes kept his eyes on their 
whereabouts. The others, Ed and Ger shorn 
included, labored to help Dolly. They slipped 
and strained over the stretch of black, slime- 
encrusted flat, glowing phosphorescently un- 
der their feet, and struck across the head of 
the marsh back of the dunes. The frost-rot- 
ted sedge coiled around spokes and axles 


THE WRECK ON BLACKFISH 129 


and hid shallow drains into which they slumped 
to their knees. At these moments the wind 
burst upon them with such fury that only their 
broad backs prevented the truck from over- 
turning. Then they crossed a half mile of 
caked sand, which was about the hardest pull 
of all, and fat Dolly was about played out when 
Captain Hayes turned her through a cut in 
the dunes and led her to the beach near 
Dutchy’s light which still glowed. 

The men needed no commands. They knew 
what to do and they did it with a rapidity born 
of much experience. It was doubtful whether 
a surf -boat could be launched in such a sea. 
The search-light confirmed their suspicions, as 
its golden ray shot out over the mountainous 
breakers. The three masts of a schooner 
glowed dull red in the beam of the light, and 
between her and the beach was a chaos of leap- 
ing, swirling, foam-crested water. Captain 
Hayes shook his head. 

“It’s bad,” he said. “We’d have to go 
round outside the shoals to get at her. Better 
try the buoy first.” 

The crew whipped the gun and line into 
place and Hayes squinted along the brass bar- 


130 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


rel. After raising and lowering it several 
times he pulled the lanyard. Gershom, 
crouching in the lee of the boat, strained his 
eyes to observe the effect of the shot. There 
was a short, anxious pause. Then Hill gave 
a shout. 

“I think it fetched her right, Captain.” 

A man in the rigging was seen to ascend 
stiffly and presently the light line attached to 
the missile began to run out, pulling after it 
the hawser of the breeches-buoy. In a com- 
paratively short time the rope was made fast 
to the mast, and with a great cheer of encour- 
agement the life-savers anchored their end of 
the hawser and seized the line that controlled 
the return of the buoy. 

One after another five benumbed, ice-en- 
crusted men were drawn ashore and plied with 
brandy and wrapped in blankets. 

“Is that all of you?” asked Hayes. 

“Cookie’s left,” said one of the men. “He 
couldn’t get to the mainmast to come off with 
us. He’s on the foremast.” 

“He’s stiff er’n a poker by this time, I guess,” 
said another. 

“She’ll be driftwood by the time we can row 
around the shoals to her,” said Hayes. 


THE WRECK ON BLACKFISH 131 


Dutchy rose and shook himself. “Pull me 
out there to Cookie,” he said. “Maybe she 
won’t split up right away.” 

“What, you, Smiley! Well — say, this is a 
tough piece of work. I dunno as you can get 
him.” 

“If he’s there, I can,” said Dutchy. “Time 
to go, though.” 

Every one jumped to help him. “If any- 
thing happens remember we’re on this end of 
the line,” said Hayes. “Swing her out, boys.” 

The first breaker struck Dutchy full in the 
chest. Drenched and battered, he broke 
through the green wall into a many-peaked, 
whirling sea that swung him about like a piece 
of driftwood, but the strong arms behind him 
pulled him through and up the shaking arcs 
of the ropes. His feet were soon clear and the 
broadsides of spray no longer blinded him. He 
lifted his face from his arms and saw the 
schooner close ahead, her rigging swollen with 
salt ice and geysers spouting high above her 
weather rail. 

When he reached the slippery crosstrees the 
violent vibrations of the mast recorded every 
lurch of the doomed vessel and every blow of 


132 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


the sea that was ripping the planks from her 
hull. On the left, the huddled figure of the 
cook was visible through the spray shooting 
between the main- and foremast. Dutchy 
hailed him and received a feeble answer, but the 
man hung in his lashings as if half -frozen. 
Dutchy saw that he must go to him, and the 
boom of the foremast — the sail had been blown 
away in shreds — offered the only feasible road. 

Dutchy slid down the mainmast to where 
the jaws of the gaff had fallen and wedged, 
and waited until the long, thrashing boom 
swung well inboard. He leaped and as he 
grasped it with a painful shock a green sea 
towered over the bulwarks and engulfed him in 
roaring water. As the boom bid up with a 
jar, while the great mass growled on its way, 
Dutchy hitched himself along with as much 
haste as he could. A second breaker leaped 
the bulwarks, but he was so near the foremast 
that only its edge caught him. Before another 
could sweep the deck his hands were on the 
mast and he was pulling himself up. 

“Hello, shipmate!” he shouted. 

“Aye, aye,” said the cook. “Have you a 
knife about you?” 


THE WRECK ON BLACKFISH 133 


Dutchy put his clasp-knife between his teeth 
and climbed to where the cook hung. As he 
hacked at the frozen ropes the man chattered 
in his ear. 

“You’re a good one. Those left me. 

Do you think we can get out of this? Her 
back’s broken.” 

“Shut up!” said Dutchy. “Catch hold now 
and slide. Easy, easy.” Together they slid 
to the grinding jaws of the boom, where a solid 
spout of green water, larger than its predeces- 
sors, almost knocked the cook to the deck, 
“Buck up!” yelled Dutchy, and with his raw 
hands he beat back some of the circulation in 
the other’s stiff arms until the fellow whined: 
“I might as well go overboard as be beat to 
death.” 

“Come on!” cried Dutchy. The cook shud- 
dered as he looked at the pitching boom. A sea 
struck the schooner and flung her down again 
on her death-bed with a crash that drove in her 
timbers like eggshells. Fear rather than cour- 
age suddenly emboldened the cook. He 
sprang out desperately upon the boom, scut- 
tling along it so rapidly that Dutchy was 
barely able to catch up to him and seize him by 


13 4s 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


the arm as he reached the end of the stick. But 
he could not hold the panic-stricken fool and 
they tumbled to the deck. A wave rolled in- 
board and piled them into the scuppers, and 
the cook would have shot through a gap in the 
shattered bulwarks if Dutchy had not caught 
him by the collar in the nick of time. 

“Now, you big bonehead, come on,” he 
shouted and dragged the other toward the 
mainmast. 

It was only a few yards away, but the seas 
were breaking so fast and high that it was no 
easy job to make it. Finally they reached the 
jaws of the boom and clutched the broken 
halyards. As they began to climb the cook 
said solemnly: “You’re all right, mate.” He 
had a round, pasty face and big owl eyes, and 
the strings of his souwester were tied under a 
chin about the size and shape of an egg. 
Dutchy looked him up and down scornfully 
without replying. The fellow’s chucklehead- 
edness irritated him excessively. 

By the help of rings and halyards they 
climbed to where the hawser of the breeches- 
buoy was lashed, and Dutchy pushed the cook 
toward it. He hesitated a moment and then 


THE WRECK ON BLACKFISH 135 


thrust his legs into the stiff canvas bag. “So 
long, captain,” he said. “We’ll get you the 
next trip.” Dutchy jerked the signal rope 
and the buoy started forward on its shoreward 
journey. 

The strong glare of the search-light showed 
Dutchy that it gained the beach safely. The 
cook was unceremoniously pulled out and the 
buoy came bobbing back; the crew making it 
jump like a flying fish as Dutchy realized with 
a little thrill. They might roast him, but he 
was one of them just the same and they would 
be glad to get him ashore. The schooner was 
rapidly sinking on her beam-ends. Her masts 
threatened to go at any moment and the crew 
knew it. They hauled in with a will as Dutchy 
jumped into the buoy, but they were none too 
quick. Just as his feet began to drag the ves- 
sel split up in a smother of foam and Dutchy, 
rolling like a half-stranded fish, was pulled up 
the beach, high but not dry. The crew 
crowded round him and pounded his broad 
back, much to his discomfiture. 

“Good boy, Dutchy,” “That was all right.” 
“Say, we were just going out for you,” were 
some of the remarks shouted at the embar- 
rassed blond. 


136 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“Come, men, get in the lines — what you can 
of them,” cried Hayes. “You’ve had more 
than your share, Smiley. Start these fellows 
to the station and tell cook to fix ’em up some 
supper.” 

Ed and Gershom went back with the rescued 
men, who seemed half dazed by the suddenness 
of the catastrophe that had tossed them from 
a stout ship on to Eastmarsh Bar. It had 
been a terrible storm, they declared, but they 
had had every expectation of weathering it un- 
til they had suddenly become paralyzed by the 
knowledge that they were close to the shoals. 
The on-shore hurricane prevented them from 
getting the schooner about in time and they 
drifted into the grip of the breakers and struck 
like “an old woman falling out of bed,” as one 
of them described it. 

Dutchy was the hero of the evening, and he 
bore the distinction as quietly as he had the 
previous scoffs of the crew. It was Mullen’s 
patrol, and as soon as he had started out and 
arrangements for bedding down the rescued 
men had been made all retired for the rest of 
the night, and the little station was soon dark 
and quiet within in spite of the gale still boom- 
ing outside. 


CHAPTER X 


BASEBALL COACHING BY THE HIRED MAN 

The next day Captain Hayes rowed Mr. Blair 
and the two boys to the mainland, where they 
received quite an ovation, as the loss of the 
goose stand was now known by every one. 
And who should meet them at the town land- 
ing but old Adam, the biggest and most ven- 
erable of Enos’s anchor geese.. Somehow he 
had broken his tether and got across the bay 
during the terrible storm, and there he paddled 
by the pier, battle-scarred but serene. No one 
had been able to catch him, but he came to 
Enos’s call like a dog and permitted himself to 
be picked up. 

“Old Adam and I are going to retire to the 
farm,” said Enos. “We’ve had enough goos- 
ing.” 

It was not often that Mr. Foy interfered 
with Gershom’s pleasures, but the recent events 
had roused him out of his ordinary attitude of 

137 


138 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


philosophic calm. He opened the matter ab- 
ruptly that morning. 

“I suppose you want to go to the Academy 
next fall, son?” he asked. 

“Yes, if I can scrape up enough to pay for 
my books and — and other things,” replied Ger- 
shom. He meant such additions to his ward- 
robe as being a member of the baseball and 
football teams might necessitate. His father 
fully understood the hiatus. 

“Well, I’ve come round to believe with your 
mother that if you want to be alive this fall 
you’d better quit gunning,” he said. “Never 
mind about the books and the other things. 
We’ll take care of those when the time comes. 
Your mother tells me you were pretty near 
drowned on Broadback, and it was a miracle 
you and that Blair ever got through that 
storm. From your own account I guess it’s 
true that there is a special Providence to watch 
over fools. It’s all very exciting, I daresay; 
but it isn’t worth while. Not from my point 
of view at any rate. You’re the only son I’ve 
got and I’ve sort of a feeling I’d like to keep 
you for a while. And not merely as an orna- 
ment, either.” 


COACHING BY THE HIRED MAN 139 

“What do you want me to do?” asked Ger- 
shom. 

“Why, just show a little more sense of re- 
sponsibility. I don’t want to shut down on 
all your fun, but you can have plenty without 
risking your life. I don’t mind an occasional 
gunning trip. I don’t think you ought to go 
every week. You know we’ve got a lot of box- 
board stuff to cut. If you’ll get in as much 
time on that as you can I’ll see that it is all 
right about the Academy.” 

“I’ll be glad to, father,” said Gershom. 
“Thank you.” 

“The wood isn’t cut yet,” said Mr. Foy with 
a twinkle in his eye. 

Cutting logs to be made into boxboards was 
part of the regular winter’s routine on the 
farm. The pine wood lot lay along the shore 
of Ten Mile Lake, two hundred acres of big 
growth which Mr. Foy husbanded carefully. 
He, himself, marked all the trees that were 
to be felled and he and Hatch and such other 
help as could be secured cut them down, sawed 
them into short logs and teamed them over to 
Clairville at the other end of the lake. 

Now that there was no prospect of any ath- 


140 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


letic contests between Academy and Eaton, 
Gershom was willing enough to work in the 
wood lot. Professor Chadwick and the other 
authorities maintained their veto firmly. 
Looma Howard and some of the players them- 
selves had called on him and promised uncon- 
ditional reform, but without receiving any more 
satisfaction than a grim smile and the declara- 
tion that promises of the kind had been made 
before and broken. The two schools were 
filled with the gloomiest forebodings. Profes- 
sor Chadwick would not say when the inter- 
dict might be lifted. If it extended through 
the spring and broke up the baseball schedule, 
it would be a pretty state of things ! 

The skating and hockey teams at the Acad- 
emy still continued to practice with more or 
less regularity, but the zest was gone. The 
indefatigable Looma tried to rouse a rivalry 
between the class teams. He succeeded to a 
certain extent, but their games could not for 
a moment furnish a tithe of the keen interest 
that would have been taken in the “best four 
out of seven” games that the regular schedule 
with Eaton called for. Moreover, few out- 
siders went to the trouble of attending the 


COACHING BY THE HIRED MAN 141 


school sports now, and this lack of public stim- 
ulus had its debilitating effect on the players. 

Charlie Hatch was as much put out as any 
of the boys. “There’s only one consolation 
and that is you’re not in the Academy yet,” he 
said. “When you are, things will be all right. 
In the meantime I’m going to get you in 
good training. I guess Professor Chadwick 
wouldn’t think that boxing was exactly neces- 
sary, but it’s a good thing to learn. It makes 
you quick all over and I’d like to see you trim 
that Collingwood some day.” 

“I’d like to do it,” assented Gershom, 
“but isn’t that just the sort of thing the ath- 
letic committee has been finding fault with? 
They say we’ve got to stop this cat and dog 
feeling.” 

“Oh, you don’t want to go around with a 
chip on your shoulder. I want to see you able 
to take care of yourself if you have to. The 
better boxer a man is the less he wants to fight, 
as a rule, but that Collingwood seems to he an 
exception. It would be a good thing all round 
to teach him a lesson. But there’s another 
thing I want to put into you and that’s a 
knowledge of real baseball.” 


142 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“Then that is a baseball finger,” said Ger- 
shom. 

Hatch drove his ax into the butt of one of 
the marked pines and with a second blow cut 
out a solid white chip. 

“I was a professional,” he said. “I might 
have been running my own farm now if I had 
left whisky alone.” A bitter look hardened 
his face for a moment. “I spoiled the best 
chances a young fellow could have asked for 
in my line, but we won’t bellyache about that. 
I can teach you baseball, but I am going to 
tell you one thing straight. You’ll never 
make a first-class pitcher. It isn’t in you like 
it is in Harry Forbes. That boy’s a natural 
born slab artist. He can beat you with his 
eyes shut.” 

Gershom felt a shock of disappointment. 
He knew that Forbes was good, but he had had 
a secret hope that some day, by dint of hard 
practice, he could outdo him. To be the pitcher 
of the Academy nine and mow down Eaton’s 
strongest batters one after the other amid the 
cheers of jubilant Eastmarsh had been a pleas- 
ing dream. Day after day he had pitched be- 
hind the barn with a brick for home plate and 


COACHING BY THE HIRED MAN 143 


he had begun to believe that his arm was grow- 
ing more skillful. Evidently he had been mis- 
taken. Hatch, who had often watched him 
silently, had been sizing him up all the time 
with keen professional eyes and had failed to 
see any promise. The hope was too deeply 
rooted to die at once. 

“Perhaps it will come to me yet,” said Ger- 
shom stubbornly. “I haven’t had any coach- 
ing. If you show me what the trouble is I may 
do better.” 

“Probably you will, but you’ll never fill the 
position right. You’d better try for catcher’s 
place instead.” 

“Catcher!” There was dismay and even 
scorn in Gershom’s tones. 

“Now there you go,” said Hatch. “You’ve 
got your head full of fool amateur notions 
about the game. You think there’s only one or 
two big places on a team like pitcher’s and 
shortstop’s for instance. Maybe there’s a little 
more limelight to be had there, but what do 
you suppose the other men are playing for? 
Just to fill in and make a background for one 
or two stars? I suppose you swallow all that 
stuff about pitchers’ battles and how the twirler 


144 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


for the Giants brought home the game in a 
romp. There’s got to be a hero to please the 
public and that’s the whole story. It’s easy 
to pin the laurel on the pitcher if he’s success- 
ful, because he seems to be about the busiest 
man on the team. I don’t say a fine pitcher 
isn’t a great asset, but he isn’t the whole thing 
by a long chalk. Where’d one of your star 
pitchers be without a good catcher behind the 
plate?” 

“Any one could learn to handle the swiftest 
delivery with practice,” said Gershom. “That 
doesn’t require headwork.” 

“I guess you’ve got one thing to learn all 
right, and that’s just this: there never was and 
never will be a championship won by a team 
with poor catchers. The manager who thinks 
a catcher is only a backstop — that all he has to 
do is to hold the balls pitched to him — had bet- 
ter go into some other business. It takes two 
men to make a good pitcher and one of them’s 
a catcher. You say there’s no headwork in 
the position. Let me tell you that the man 
behind the wire cage does — or ought to do — 
more real thinking than any one else on the 
diamond. 


COACHING BY THE HIRED MAN 145 


“I’ll tell you a few reasons why. A catcher 
has a better opportunity than any other man 
to size up the batters of the other side. He is 
so close to them that he can detect every move- 
ment, every impulse, almost every thought, you 
might say. He can see how and why the bat- 
ter misses or hits the ball, which is a lot more 
than the pitcher can do, though it’s just the 
knowledge that the pitcher wants. When a 
catcher knows his business he learns all these 
things and tells the pitcher by signals just what 
ball a given batter is most likely to miss. Then 
you have a perfect battery. 

“But that isn’t all a catcher has to do. He 
has to keep his eye on the bases and be ready 
to stop a man from stealing and see that the 
ball goes to the right place at the right moment 
when a man does start to run. And he’s got 
to send the ball along as fast and as straight 
as a rifle bullet. And there’s another thing. 
The catcher is the only man who faces the field. 
He has a better chance than anybody else to 
see where the batters line out their drives and 
how his own side make their plays. If he’s got 
a head on him — and the man who hasn’t ought 
to keep clear of the wire cage — he can teach his 


146 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


team lots of things about playing their posi- 
tions and backing up each other. Then there’s 
a dozen little ways in which he can rattle the 
batter or take his attention off long enough 
so that the pitcher can sneak one over on him. 
Your athletic committee might object to that, 
but it’s done every day in the big leagues. 
Believe me, a catcher can win as many games 
by headwork as a pitcher can. I’ve been on 
the inside and I know. I’ve seen it done time 
and again and I’ve done it myself, though per- 
haps I shouldn’t say so.” 

“You were a catcher!” cried Gershom. 

“Yes, and on a team that won the champion- 
ship. And just to show how much the man- 
ager thought of me I’ll tell you that only one 
man, and he was the captain, drew down a big- 
ger salary than I did. Do you think that 
sounds as if he only wanted a backstop to fill 
the position?” 

“No,” said Gershom thoughtfully. 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You can pitch 
to me for a week or two and I’ll coach you, and 
if I think there’s a chance I’ll say so. But if 
I say there isn’t, will you let me work the mat- 
ter out to suit myself?” 


COACHING BY THE HIRED MAN 147 

“Yes,” replied Gershom. “If I can’t pitch, 
I don’t care what position you put me in.” 

“Now that’s baby talk,” said Hatch sharply. 
“I wanted to pitch more than you ever did and 
I was pretty good too, but I had sense enough 
to see that I couldn’t hold the place down. I 
might have given up then and there, but I 
didn’t, and it wasn’t many years before I had 
as big a reputation as any pitcher in the 
league.” 

“It’s funny I never heard of you,” Gershom 
blurted out. “At least — ” 

“Of the name of Hatch, you mean. There’s 
a good reason why. That’s only associated 
with a drunkard who’s ashamed to let people 
know who he really is. I guess I’ve talked 
enough about myself for one afternoon.” 

Hatch turned away abruptly and went on 
with his wood cutting. His allusions to his 
past had revived the old shame and regret, and 
it was some time before he regained his usual 
half -indifF er ent, half - j ocular air. Gershom 
realized what the man was feeling and did not 
speak of baseball again until Hatch brought the 
subject up of his own accord. Every day after 
that they spent an hour or so at boxing or 


148 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

pitching, and Gershom made satisfactory 
progress in the former art even if he did not 
succeed very well in the latter. In fact, he be- 
gan to see himself with Hatch’s eyes. He 
could throw a fast straight ball, but he lacked 
the skill to curve it in anything like the manner 
that Hatch could, and yet the hired man was 
utterly contemptuous of his own ability in that 
line. “If you can’t do at least as well as I can 
you’re not good enough even for a school 
team,” he said. “I used to be able to bend 
some pretty swift ones, but that time’s gone 
by” 

“I give in,” said Gershom one day after a 
strenuous bit of practice. “I’m getting worse 
rather than better. Let’s see you pitch a few, 
Harry.” 

Forbes and Tutt had come over to watch the 
practice and had been much struck with 
Hatch’s theoretical and practical knowledge of 
the game. “He seems to know everything 
about inside ball,” remarked Forbes, who was 
a persevering reader of baseball literature. 
“I’ll bet he played himself once.” As Hatch 
had asked that his confidences should be kept 
secret, Gershom merely said a careless: “Oh, 


COACHING BY THE HIRED MAN 149 


I daresay,” and handed the ball to Forbes, who 
took his place in the “box” confronting Charlie 
Hatch. 

“Now give me a straight one,” called Hatch. 
The ball thudded into his mitt and he returned 
it with a peculiar underhand jerk. “Now put 
a little more speed on and shave the inside of 
the plate. Always put your straight ones as 
near the batter as you can. That’s better. 
Now try the out-curve. No, you want a 
sharper break than that. Take your time. 
Hurry your straight ones, but not your curves. 
And don’t try any funny business. A batter 
wouldn’t have to see that more than once to 
know just what kind of a ball it meant.” 

Unpleasant as it was, Gershom could see 
that Forbes was his master in every way. His 
curves were cleaner and he had much more con- 
trol of the ball. His very air as he wound up 
before his delivery showed the natural pitcher. 
He was not very skillful yet, but he was as 
good as Belcher of the Academy, and Belcher 
was an experienced third-class man. With a 
very little practice Forbes would quite out- 
class him, Gershom believed. 

“I’m not going to try for your goat any 


150 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


longer, Harry,” he said. “I couldn’t get it 
anyway. I’m going to take Hatch’s advice 
and see if I can learn to catch.” 

“I’m sorry about the pitching, Gersh,” said 
Forbes, “but if you do give it up we can prac- 
tice battery work together. We’d help each 
other a lot. Wouldn’t it be great if we could 
make the two positions on the team.” 

“I’d be glad to coach the two of you,” said 
Hatch, drawing off his catcher’s mitt. “If 
we could get a batter or two we’d get ahead 
faster.” 

“I’m pretty poor, but you can count on me,” 
said Tutt. “And we can easily pick up an 
extra fellow or two afternoons or Saturdays. 
Looma will help. He’s got his eye on Harry 
and Gershom already, though he can’t see me 
with a magnifying glass.” 

Forbes was so enthusiastic that Gershom 
was ashamed of the envy and disappointment 
he felt. As Hatch had often said, it took nine 
men to make a team and only one of them could 
be the pitcher. “The secret of success,” Hatch 
had said, “is in getting men, each one of whom 
will play his position as if he thinks it the most 
important one on the nine, but at the same time 


COACHING BY THE HIRED MAN 151' 


will have a clear idea that team work is more 
valuable than trying to find chances for indi- 
vidual grandstand stunts.” 

Hatch had pointed this with many reminis- 
cences and illustrations, and its truth had 
gradually been sinking into Gershom. He 
had had more than a fair trial at pitching under 
a skillful coach and yet he was as far from get- 
ting the hang of it as ever. On the other hand, 
Forbes did have the hang of it and in ten min- 
utes had shown ability to grasp points that he, 
Gershom, had not worked out in as many days. 
It would be silly and poor-spirited to indulge 
in any more delusions. Gershom resolved to 
end his dreams and put what zest he could into 
the new role. 

Eaton and Eastmarsh saw very little of each 
other these days. Under ordinary circum- 
stances they would have been meeting more 
or less regularly at Ten Mile Lake and hold- 
ing “brush” skating races. These were no 
longer possible, as Eaton had been restricted 
to the use of a small pond within their own 
grounds and all their hockey training was done 
there. The Eaton boys were seldom allowed 
to frequent the town and now their outdoors 


152 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


excursions were limited to rambles or hare- 
and-hound runs in the woods and fields outside 
of the more thickly settled part of Eastmarsh. 
Encounters between the Man Eaters and 
Zulus and Mud Hens were rare and tame. 
The old mischievous, reckless spirit seemed to 
have been successfully subdued by the rigorous 
edict of the athletic committee. Half the fun 
of living had been banished. The boys held 
themselves in check only because they were 
afraid that rebellion might result in a loss of 
the spring contests between the baseball, tennis 
and sailing clubs. 

Under these circumstances Ger shorn was 
fairly content to plug away at the wood lot, 
with an occasional bout at boxing or an hour 
or two at baseball. The weather, however, was 
growing so very cold that it was difficult to do 
much at the latter, and sometimes Hatch would 
take the boys into his room and give them a 
talk on inside ball, illustrating it with chalk 
diagrams on the wall. They were so illumi- 
native that Looma Howard, who happened to 
attend one of them, declared that Academy 
ought to raise a fund to secure Hatch as their 
coach. Gershom found that he was gaining an 


COACHING BY THE HIRED MAN 153 


absolutely new viewpoint, and his old hopes 
gradually faded out and were replaced hy much 
sounder and more practical ambitions. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE VOYAGE OF “THE SKATE” 

The pine logs had always been carried to Clair- 
ville by Mr. Foy’s big grays as soon as suf- 
ficient snow had fallen to make good sleighing. 
It was a slow process at best, for the sled held 
only a cord and the round trip was a long one. 
The winter had grown very cold, but without 
much snow, and the piles of wood in the lot 
were awaiting transportation. Mr. Foy had 
about made up his mind to hire a wheeled truck 
of Harry Forbes’ father when Charlie Hatch 
said that he had a much better plan than that. 

“The ice on Ten Mile Lake is thick enough 
to bear a team of elephants,” he said. “What’s 
the matter with building an ice-boat big enough 
to take a cord. I used to build and sail them 
when I was a boy, and I’m sure it can be done 
all right and a lot of time saved.” 

Mr. Foy was skeptical. He wasn’t used to 
ice-boats and at his time of life was not pre- 

154 


THE VOYAGE OF “THE SKATE” 155 


pared to believe in them — at least as wood- 
carriers — but he could not subdue Hatch’s con- 
victions. The hired man drew up a working 
plan in detail which really looked simple and 
suitable, and he clung to the subject with such 
tenacity that. Mr. Foy finally gave in. “I 
don’t take much stock in it, but there’s plenty 
of lumber lying round that you can use if you 
want to,” he said. “Don’t expect me to take 
a trip in the thing, though.” 

Hatch went to work at once. He was clever 
with his hands, and as he had built ice-boats 
before on a smaller scale he knew just what he 
wanted to do. Gershom and Bill Tutt, who 
had caught fire over the scheme, were only too 
ready to help, and for a fortnight the Foy land- 
ing-place at Ten Mile Lake resounded at in- 
tervals with the tapping of hammers and the 
rasping of saws. 

The whole thing was merely a framework: 
a sort of skeleton platform like the frame of 
a giant kite, resting on the long iron runners 
which Everett Hook, the blacksmith, had 
forged under Hatch’s supervision. An old 
catboat belonging to Mr. Foy furnished the 
masts and spars and also the tiller which con- 


156 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


trolled the rudder, or rear skate. Both boom 
and gaff were lengthened and the boom raised 
well up so that it would clear its deck cargo. 
When her large sail of light duck was bent on 
the queer craft had really quite a shiplike look, 
but Mr. Foy viewed it with deep forebodings. 

“She’ll never move a peg,” was his first crit- 
icism. 

“Just you wait till one of our north winds 
come along,” said Hatch confidently. “She’ll 
go so fast you can’t follow her with the naked 
eye.” 

“That’s no recommendation to me,” replied 
Mr. Foy. “But as a matter of fact I don’t 
believe you’ll ever deliver any wood in her.” 

His sense of humor would not let him spoil 
the situation, and he gave Hatch permission 
to try out “The Skate,” as he called the ice- 
boat. Hatch and Gershom and Tutt loaded 
her carefully and then awaited with great im- 
patience the arrival of a fair wind. At this 
season most of the winds came from the north 
or northwest, and they did not have to wait 
many days before a very powerful one began 
to blow. It happened to be Friday so that 
their school interfered with the trip, but on Sat- 


THE VOYAGE OF “THE SKATE” 157 

urday the wind still held in the same quarter 
with undiminished force. 

Mrs. Foy, who had misgivings, refused to 
view the start; but Mr. Foy and Bill’s young 
brother, Henry, went up to the landing and 
helped in the final arrangements. The large 
sail was then hoisted and Mr. Foy and Henry 
stepped back grinning : but nothing happened. 
The sail bellied out, stiff as a board, while the 
Skate remained perfectly immovable. Henry 
began to snicker. 

“Can you see her yet with the naked eye, 
sonny?” asked Mr. Foy. “Terrible fast, ain’t 
she?” 

“She’s stuck down, I guess,” said Hatch with 
dignity. “Give us a push, will you?” 

“All right, if you think I can keep up with 
her,” retorted Mr. Foy. He and Henry 
pushed manfully against her rear braces, but 
with as little effect as if they had been endeav- 
oring to move one of Ten Mile’s bowlders from 
its bed. Hatch left the tiller and Gershom and 
Bill jumped out on the ice and all five grunted 
and strained for several minutes. Then just 
as they were about to give up, “The Skate” 
began to move. Hatch sprang for the tiller 
and the two boys tumbled aboard. 


158 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“Keep it up. Give us one good one now!” 
cried Hatch. 

Mr. Foy and Henry threw themselves 
against the brace. “The Skate’s” inertia was 
overcome. Her slow glide suddenly changed 
into a leap. Hatch called to the pushers to let 
go, but taken by surprise they held on a sec- 
ond too long and were jerked over the polished 
ice. When they succeeded in letting go they 
came together with arms flying and legs spread 
out like compasses. Henry clutched one end 
of Mr. Foy’s muffler and down they flopped 
upon their backs. 

“Good-by!” shouted Hatch with a laugh. 
“I guess she can move a peg, eh?” 

With the heavy wind striking the huge sail 
fair and square, “The Skate” began to show 
her qualities. Her speed increased rapidly. 
The ice was hard and black and without a flaw, 
and she sped over it with no apparent friction, 
like a teal through the air. The course was 
straightaway. Ten miles dead south lay Clair- 
ville, whose long main street was bordered by 
the lake on one side and by stores and dwelling 
houses on the other. All Hatch had to do 
was to keep “The Skate” as she was, and bring 


THE VOYAGE OF “THE SKATE” 159 

her to at the pier of the box factory. Nothing 
could have seemed simpler, and what a tre- 
mendous improvement over the long, slow trip 
by land! 

“This beats the grays, Bill,” said Gershom. 

“It beats anything I ever tried,” replied 
Bill. “She’s walking and don’t you forget it.” 

A mellow drone came up from the iron run- 
ners. The load of logs held “The Skate” 
firmly on an even keel, but Hatch began to 
find that the weight added to the difficulty of 
steering. The boys were amused spectators 
of his exertions. 

“Better keep off -shore a little more,” said 
Gershom. “There’s some bowlders off Rocky 
Point.” 

“Gee whillikins ! I’d like to,” he said. “It’s 
a question whether I’m steering her or she’s 
steering herself.” He wrenched at the tiller, 
which did not seem to give an inch. Pines and 
swamp maples flashed by in a long blur. “The 
Skate” was tearing over the ice with the speed 
of an express train and the whir of her runners 
had risen to a triumphant pitch. Rocky Point 
seemed to leap to meet them, its long row of 
bowlders looming above the ice like monuments 


160 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


in a graveyard. The boys grew uneasy, then 
alarmed. 

“Let go your mainsheet!” roared Hatch. 

Tutt, who was nearest, endeavored to do so, 
but his mittens stuck to his hands and his fin- 
gers were clumsy and stiff with cold. Hatch 
cut his fumbling short. 

“Let it alone !” he shouted. “Rocky 
Point’s got to look for itself.” 

Tutt hadn’t time to crawl back to his place. 
A great bowlder was almost under the bow, and 
to port and starboard others reared as high as 
haystacks in a field. But they saw them only 
for a second, gray-brown masses whisking by 
with the speed of the wind. Then they were 
out on the glassy, unobstructed ice again, tear- 
ing along faster than ever. 

“If we’d struck one of those rocks we’d have 
grubbed her up like a tooth,” said Hatch. 
“But I guess we’d have passed right into King- 
dom Come.” 

“Can’t we go a little slower?” asked Ger- 
shom. 

“Not unless you’ve got some influence with 
the wind, we can’t. We’ve got a clear field 
now, boys.” 


THE VOYAGE OF “THE SKATE” 161 


While they talked — or rather shouted — they 
clung like leeches to the creaking platform of 
“The Skate.” The wind burned their faces to 
a bright purple and started such a copious mois- 
ture in their eyes as almost to obscure the shore 
by which they flashed. In spite of the danger, 
there was a keen pleasure in the swift and even 
motion, so much swifter than any they had ever 
experienced before. 

“There’s nothing the matter with her go- 
ing,” observed Tutt suddenly; “but how about 
her stopping?” 

“Oh, I guess I can bring her to,” said Hatch, 
but his voice was not over-charged with confi- 
dence. “You want to be quicker on the main 
sheet than you were before, though.” 

“I see her!” shouted Gershom, who had been 
peering above the load of wood. “She’s show- 
ing up plain now, steeple and all.” 

The village of Clairville had sprung into 
view, its line of buildings almost overhanging 
the lake and the green background of pines set- 
ting forth the white houses clearly. Its details 
developed swiftly one by one, like a picture 
moved toward the eye — boats drawn up on the 
shore where the wind had piled the snow from 


162 


BQ^S OF EASTMARSH 


the lake in a great drift; a team jogging along 
the street; several pedestrians walking briskly 
along the sidewalk and a group of persons be- 
fore the postoffice, like bees at the entrance of 
a hive. A sudden apprehension gripped Ger- 
shom. 

“Do you know we’re pretty near?” he said to 
Hatch. “Hadn’t we better let out the main- 
sheet?” 

“Not yet,” said Hatch. “If she loses way 
we can’t start her again. Stand by the sheet, 
though.” 

Tutt took off his mittens and began to beat 
his blue hands together. “The Skate” flew on 
like a fury, and Gershom could see from the 
expression of Hatch’s face that he was grow- 
ing nervous. Just as he started to crawl to- 
ward Tutt with the intention of helping him 
if necessary, Hatch shouted out for them to 
stand by and endeavored to throw the tiller 
over. It gave a little, but then the iron rudder 
took a fresh bite on the ice. To make matters 
worse a perfect squall of wind struck them. 

“Let go!” roared Hatch, and Tutt whipped 
the mainsheet from the cleat. Unfortunately 
it slipped from his stiff fingers and snapping 


THE VOYAGE OF “THE SKATE” 163 

forward, jammed itself in a knot among the 
pine logs. 

“Swing her off!” cried Gershom. 

“I can’t, we’ve got to jump,” said Hatch. 
“Squat down as low as you can. Land sitting. 
Off you go!” 

The “deck” was only a few inches above the 
ice, but it seemed to Gershom that he fell 
through a good many feet of space before he 
struck. He was very uncertain as to whether 
he had obeyed Hatch’s advice and landed sit- 
ting or not. When he was able to realize his 
position, he was spread-eagled out with his face 
toward the land, at which “The Skate” was 
rushing with undiminished zeal. In a moment 
more she exploded upon the rocky shore with 
a crash; her mast disappeared like magic, and 
a perfect flock of pine logs rose from the wreck 
and soared toward Clairville’s main street. 

Gershom got up gingerly, conscious of holes 
in his elbows and trowsers and several patches 
of smarting skin. Tutt was close behind him, 
staunching a streaming nose. Hatch sat a few 
yards to the east, thoughtfully removing the 
shreds of a mitten from his wrist. 

“Don’t you wish father were here!” said Ger- 
shom. 


164 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


They looked at each other and at the wreck 
on the shore and the crowd of startled citizens 
standing as if petrified, and burst into peals of 
laughter. 

“Your father was wrong on the main point, 
just the same,” said Hatch, when he was able 
to speak. “She delivered those logs all right. 
Delivered ’em plumb into the middle of Clair- 
ville.” 

It was with soberer faces that they viewed 
the wreck of “The Skate.” At first it looked 
as if a good deal of time and material had been 
wasted, but Hatch grew a little more hopeful 
as he continued the inspection. “There’s life 
left in her yet,” he observed. “With a new 
port runner and some timbers and a general 
refastening all round she’ll be fit to use again. 
Now let’s go over to the mill and arrange to 
have those logs collected.” 

The three shipwrecked Eastmarshers had to 
endure a good deal of chaff from the Clairville 
wits. “Is that the way you always stop?” 
asked one. “Looked as if our town was going 
to be pushed back into the woods,” observed 
another. But while they joked, they good- 
naturedly helped gather the scattered logs and 


THE VOYAGE OF “THE SKATE” 165 


load them into one of the mill trucks that had 
been sent to the landing. The wood delivered 
and paid for, the question was how they should 
get home. Hatch finally decided to hire a 
horse and tow “The Skate” back over the lake 
at his own expense, but this did not suit the 
boys, who made up their minds that it would 
be rather good fun to walk home. 

Accordingly they set out at once. There 
was plenty of time before them and the day was 
clear and invigorating, the wind being much 
less obvious on the sheltered road than on the 
open lake. They had not covered more than 
a mile when a wagon drove up behind them 
and the driver pulled up and asked them if 
they would like to ride. He was going as far 
as Crooked Creek road which meant an easy 
passage almost into the town, and readily re- 
linquishing the idea of a walk, the boys ac- 
cepted his offer. 

The horses, which were very fast, made the 
wagon rattle and bounce behind them as they 
raced along the road. Conversation was 
quite impossible. Tutt and Gershom had all 
they could do to hang on and keep their caps 
from flying off and they were pretty well 


166 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


shaken up by the time they reached Crooked 
Creek road and said good-by to the driver. 

As the wagon dashed off, they turned the 
curve in the turn-pike beyond its junction with 
the Creek road where the thick pine woods were 
replaced by a stretch of rolling pasture land 
dotted with scrub and old brush heaps. Two 
men armed with guns were walking in plain 
sight across one of the little elevations, and 
a low-set, hound-marked, little dog* briskly 
quartered the ground ahead of them. “Pedro 
and Dolph!” exclaimed Gershom. “They’re 
out rabbiting. That’s their beagle.” 

The boys drew back under the shadow of the 
trees. They had not the least intention of let- 
ting the Bloodsaws see them if they could help 
it, and the road, therefore, was not to be 
thought of at present. They hoped the Blood- 
saws would keep on into the woods beyond the 
pasture land, but they might have known that 
as the two men were after rabbits they would 
not do so. When they reached the edge of the 
wood, Pedro and Dolph turned and came 
slowly back a little lower down the elevation. 
They walked almost to the point where the 
boys were hidden and then turned as before. 


THE VOYAGE OF “THE SKATE” 167 


Half way across the beagle jumped a close-ly- 
ing rabbit. The boys saw a streak of gray 
shoot through the light scrub and heard the 
little dog give tongue. The rabbit raced up 
hill and then doubled back. As it crossed a 
little opening, Pedro took a snap-shot and 
bowled it over. 

“Pretty good/’ commented Tutt. “I 
wouldn’t want Pedro to send a charge after 
me.” 

“I believe he’d do it if he wanted to,” said 
Gershom. “I wish they’d hurry up and get 
out. I’m getting cold.” 

“If we had Cotton’s flying machine we could 
reach home in no time. Frank says the Comet 
is working fine.” 

“Do they use her in cold weather like this?” 

“Oh, yes ; but they don’t go very high. Just 
high enough to clear the woods, I guess.” 

“Well, I’d rather be in one of Hatch’s run- 
away ice-boats than in the Comet any time,” 
said Gershom. “Confound it, I believe those 
fellows are going to beat the other side.” 

Pedro and Dolph had crossed the road and 
were starting along the lower edge of the pas- 
tures. “We won’t get back till after dark if 


168 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


we wait for them to finish/’ exclaimed Tutt in 
disgust. “We’d better cut round to the west 
and go through the woods as far as the old In- 
dian trail. It’s only a mile or two extra and 
I’m sick of shivering here.” 

“Come on,” said Gershom. “I wish we’d 
done it in the first place. We’ll have to go 
through some Man Eater country, but Eaton 
hasn’t been prowling around much lately.” 


CHAPTER XII 


THE JAPANESE WEATHER YANE 

It was not at all difficult for Gershom and 
Tutt to keep out of sight as they ascended the 
slight slope. On the other side of the ridge 
they were perfectly safe and they struck 
straight across the rolling, wooded country to- 
ward the old Indian trail between Eastmarsh 
and the head of Ten Mile Lake. Half-an- 
hour’s walk brought them to the trail and turn- 
ing to the northeast they had hardly started 
to follow it toward Eastmarsh, when they ran 
plump into four boys in sweaters and mackinaw 
jackets. 

The two groups stopped and studied each 
other warily for a moment. Gershom and 
Tutt were larger than any of the Eaton boys, 
hut the latter had the advantage of numbers. 
As it happened, they were not looking for 
trouble. 

“Hullo, fellows,” said one of them in a pa- 
cific tone. “Taking a walk?” 


170 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“Walking back from Clairville,” replied 
Tutt. 

“Whew! That’s a good one.” 

“It didn’t take us long to get there,” said 
Gershom. “About twenty-two minutes, wasn’t 
it, Bill?” 

“Just about,” confirmed Tutt. 

The four Eatonites laughed good-naturedly 
at this evident “stretcher.” 

“About a mile in two minutes, eh? You 
flew it, I suppose!” said one of them. 

“No, we ice-boated it,” said Gershom. “I’m 
not joking,” and he briefly related their ex- 
perience with “The Skate.” 

The Eatonites laughed excessively. “Let’s 
go back with them,” said a good-looking young 
fellow, the pattern of whose jacket was an ex- 
traordinary combination of huge red and green 
stripes. The rest agreed and the friendly 
groups merged into one and began to walk up 
the trail. 

Naturally the conversation soon turned to 
the athletic troubles between the two schools. 
The Eaton boys were very fair, at least so far 
as Academy was concerned, but they were 
down hard on Professor Chadwick and the 


THE JAPANESE WEATHER VANE 171 


other members of the board who had spoiled 
good sport. “Old Chadwick always was a 
fussbudget,” said Stone, the owner of the red 
and green jacket. “It’s funny he should want 
to mix in athletics at all, the old granny.” 

“I guess he isn’t any worse than Mr. Hil- 
ton,” said Gershom, generously willing that 
Eastmarsh should share some of the odium. 

“Hilton was only too glad to meet Chad- 
wick half way,” said Tutt. “He usually has 
a grouch on.” 

Mr. Hilton, selectman and one of the trus- 
tees of the Academy, had been a member of 
the board that had stopped the games between 
the schools. It was reported that the measure 
had met with his unqualified approval and for 
this the younger element of Eastmarsh held 
him to be little less than a traitor. 

“All I can say is that it’s a beastly shame,” 
remarked Stone. “We’ve shown old Chad- 
wick pretty much what we think of him, but 
a lot he cares for that ! He’s not dependent on 
his salary, you know. He’s independently well 
off and lives by himself outside of the grounds 
with his stable and his greenhouse and other 
nice fixings, while the rest of the poor profs 


in 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


have to room in dormitory suites like the fel- 
lows. He wouldn’t be popular if he could. 
He has some pull with the Doctor, I think.” 

“I’d like to get even with him,” said one of 
the four boys. He had a weak face and nar- 
row shoulders and was plainly of small account 
as an athlete, but he spoke with as much bitter- 
ness as if he had been captain of several teams. 

“Why don’t you think up some way, Car- 
roll?” said one of his friends. “You’re usually 
pretty clever at getting even.” 

Carroll acknowledged the tribute with a self- 
complacent air. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do to 
old Johnny Chadwick if you’ll help me,” he 
said. “I’ll steal that nice new weathercock 
he’s just put up on the stable. Only, as a 
matter of fact, it isn’t new. It’s a Japanese 
bronze and quite a curio. You know Johnny 
is daffy on the subject of Japanese stuff,” he 
explained to Tutt and Gershom. “He has 
bronze lanterns and silk ones and lacquer ones 
hanging all over his place, and he takes them 
in every night like so many chickens. There’s 
a regular temple gate at the entrance and a 
lot of the trees are barbered a la Japanese. 
They say he has rooms full of fans and prints 


THE JAPANESE WEATHER VANE 173 


and velvet paintings. He spends most of his 
income on his collection, I imagine. It would 
make him awfully peevish to lose that big 
weathercock.” 

“What could we do with it?” asked Stone. 

“Hide it somewhere. I don’t want the bally 
thing. I want to make old Johnny mad, that’s 
all. Are you fellows game enough to help 
me?” 

“We’d get into a mess if we were caught,” 
suggested one of the other boys doubtfully. 

“If you haven’t enough sand you can run 
along back to the school, Ballard,” said Car- 
roll. “As a matter of fact, it’s safe enough, 
Johnny drove over to Ridgton this afternoon, 
so that disposes of him and the coachman. 
There’s no one else at home except the maid and 
I guess she has something better to do than 
to watch the stable. There’s so much shrub- 
bery that we can sneak right up to the rear of 
it as easy as pie, and it’s a perfect cinch to get 
from the cow shed to the main roof. All those 
in favor, say, Aye.” 

The ayes had it unanimously. For all his 
weak face Carroll had a sort of masterful way 
with him, at least when mischief was afoot, and 


174 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


his tongue was glib and plausible. Tutt and 
Ger shorn saw no harm in the practical joke. 
It was not a question of stealing the weather- 
cock; they were merely going to take it from 
the barn and hide it. Such was the specious 
argument with which they calmed their doubts. 
They were not aware that Stone and Carroll 
had unenviable records at Eaton and were so 
unpopular, in fact, that they were more or less 
restricted to their own society, though a few 
weaklings like Ballard regarded them with 
stealthy admiration. If they had known it, it 
would probably have made little difference in 
their decision. They were sore on Professor 
Chadwick, and the scheme appealed to them 
as a pretty good lark. 

In due course of time they arrived at the 
rear of Professor Chadwick’s place and had 
climbed the high wire fence each of whose green 
posts was decorated with an ingenious bird- 
house. The grounds comprised about three 
acres and were well worth seeing. Professor 
Chadwick had chosen the location with care. 
Originally its rolling surface had been heavily 
wooded and the majority of the tall junipers 
and pines had been left about as nature made 


THE JAPANESE WEATHER VANE 175 


them, but the undergrowth had been cleared 
away and narrow, winding gravel paths led in 
every direction. In one of the little hollows a 
pool had been made with stone slabs leading 
to it and a massive urn, half draped with 
shrubs, confronted one on the high bank op- 
posite. As Carroll had said, there were lan- 
terns everywhere in spite of the season, and 
occasionally the paths ran between heavy, up- 
right timbers with curiously carved beams 
across the top, all painted a dull, thick red — 
temple gateways, Carroll called them. 

The place displayed such a love of nature 
as well as art that Gershom was favorably im- 
pressed. Johnny Chadwick couldn’t be such 
a cut-and-dried old granny if he had produced 
this. A vague feeling that they were engaged 
on an errand of senseless vandalism began to 
prick him, but the energetic Carroll left him 
little time for reflection. Intent on his pur- 
pose, he led his force to the cow shed and post- 
ing Ballard and one of the other boys on picket 
duty, he proposed that the rest should draw lots 
to see who should get the weathercock. 

“That’s the fairest plan,” he said. “Then 
no one can say we didn’t stand the risk 
equally.” 


176 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


No objection could be made to this and 
Carroll picked four twigs, and Stone, Tutt 
and Gershom each drew one. When they com- 
pared lengths it was found that the longest 
twig had remained in Carroll’s hand. “I’m 
elected,” he said nonchalantly and pulled off 
his thick mackinaw. “Keep a sharp lookout, 
you fellows. I’m the only one who’s at all 
liable to be identified if we are surprised.” 

They boosted him up to the roof of the cow 
shed along which he scuttled with unex- 
pected nerve and agility and soon reached the 
eaves of the barn. This was not so easily 
scaled, but once he had his toe hooked in the 
gutter he managed to squirm up, and then 
began his upward crawl to the cupola. Gain- 
ing this he did not waste a moment, but boldly 
clutched the weathercock and lifted it from its 
spindle. The thing was evidently quite heavy 
and Carroll seemed somewhat nonplussed at 
first as to what to do with it. Finally he placed 
it on the shingles in front of him and began to 
back down, hitching it carefully along as he 
went. 

He had nearly reached the eaves when the 
weathercock slipped out of his grasp. It 


THE JAPANESE WEATHER VANE 177 


slid down, bouncing from the gutter to the cow 
shed and thence falling to the frozen ground, 
which it struck head first. Stone hastily 
picked it up. The graceful head was bent over 
till the beak almost touched the breast. 

“That’s too bad,” said Gershom, beginning 
to regret his part in the affair. 

“What’s the odds,” replied Stone. “Old 
Johnny shouldn’t use a valuable curio as a 
weathervane. Carroll couldn’t help it.” 

“You bet I couldn’t,” said Carroll, who had 
dropped from the cow shed. “Those shingles 
are like glass.” As he began to put on his 
coat, Ballard ran up, his eyes as big as saucers. 
“Look out, you fellows,” he panted. “John- 
ny’s just driven into the yard.” 

“Of all the luck! He may notice it right 
off. Quick! Back this way.” The resource- 
ful Carroll led the retreat through the shrub- 
bery, enjoining Stone not to drop the “bird.” 
The short cut to Eaton lay across compara- 
tively open land, and it was equally dangerous 
to circle round into the road where they might 
be met and recognized. Tutt and Gershom 
knew the woods better than the others. Their 
offer to find a way out was promptly accepted 


178 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


and the band sneaked rapidly away in Indian 
file. 

“Look here,” said Stone wdien they had gone 
about half a mile. “This bird is getting con- 
founded heavy. It’s some one else’s turn to 
carry it.” 

No one seemed anxious to assume the bur- 
den, not because of its weight, but because of 
a certain uneasy guiltiness. “Well, I’m done 
with it,” said Stone. “Let’s cache it here 
somewhere.” The others instantly objected to 
this. “We’ll never find it again if we do,” ob- 
served Ballard, voicing the opinion of the rest. 
“If things get too hot, you know, we might be 
glad to be able to return it.” 

“There’s a good place to hide it under the 
culvert at the lower end of Moffat’s farm,” 
said Gershom. 

The others agreed with evident relief and 
Gershom, carrying the bronze bird, led the way 
to the culvert into which he crawled laboriously. 
In a minute or so the others heard him utter an 
exclamation that came rolling out of the stone 
opening with a hollow, muffled rumbling and 
presently his heels and then his bent body ap- 
peared as he shuffled backward, carrying a 
round brass clock in his hand. 


THE JAPANESE WEATHER VANE 179 


“What’s that trash?” asked Carroll, scorn- 
fully. 

“It’s old Moffat’s ship clock,” said Gershom. 
“You remember it, don’t you, Bill? It was 
on the mantelpiece between the two lumps 
of coral.” 

“I remember it: it’s a beauty of its kind; but 
why should it be in the culvert !” 

“I wonder!” said Gershom. “Look here! 
The back had a lock and it’s been forced and 
there’s not a sign of a wheel inside.” 

“As empty as a last year’s hazel nut,” said 
Stone. 

Gershom turned the heavy brass case over 
in his hands and gave it a shake. Something 
rattled faintly and when he repeated the mo- 
tion with more emphasis a small circular ob- 
ject fell from some slot where it had lodged and 
rolled out on the grass, shining brightly. It 
was a silver dime. Gershom stared at it with 
an expression of dismay, while Carroll made a 
clicking sound with his tongue. 

“It’s a bank!” they exclaimed simultan- 
eously. 

“How on earth — ?” cried Tutt. “A bank! 
Why should old Moffat chuck his bank into the 


180 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

culvert even if there was only a dime in it? 
He must be doty.” 

“Luny as an owl,” agreed Ballard. 
“What’ll we do with the dime? If he’s thrown 
it away, findings ought to be havings.” 

“You are a promising young burglar, you 
are,” grinned Stone. “First you pinch 
Johnny’s weathervane and now you’re ready to 
rob old Moffat of ten cents. The Society for 
the Correction of Wayward Children ought 
to get after you.” 

“I didn’t take the weathervane — any more 
than you did and we don’t intend to keep it 
any way,” protested Ballard, flushing. “Car- 
roll took — ” 

“Shut up whining,” said Carroll. “You 
needn’t worry about it; everybody knows you 
haven’t sand enough to take a full breath.” 

“Old Moffat never threw the clock in here,” 
observed Gershom, coming out of a brown 
study. “If he wanted to get rid of it he would 
have chucked it on the dump back of his place, 
where he puts all his rubbish.” 

“Q. E. D. — some one else did,” said Stone. 
“The plot is getting thick.” 

“That’s it. Some one else did. Q. E. D. 
again — old Moffat’s been robbed.” 


THE JAPANESE WEATHER VANE 181 


“Let’s sort of meander around that way,” 
said Tutt. “He was pretty decent to us you 
know and at any rate we can pass him back his 
dime.” 

Now that the weathercock was off their 
hands the others were quite ready to prolong 
their afternoon out, especially as there was a 
possibility of poking their noses into an adven- 
ture. Taking the brass ship’s clock with them 
they crossed the swamp above the culvert, flush- 
ing a pair of wintering pigeon-woodpeckers 
from a black cedar clump, and then began 
to ascend the long, easy slope that led to the 
old captain’s house. As they drew nearer to 
it something peculiar about the broad, stone 
doorstep arrested their attention. Some six or 
seven uneasy cats were collected there. They 
seemed to be much disturbed over something, 
mewing and rubbing against the green door 
and occasionally making little darting runs 
along the front of the house. One thick- 
necked, golden-eyed Tom advanced toward the 
boys, mewing and waving its tail excitedly. 

“Wants a dish of grub,” said Tutt, an ex- 
pert on cats. “Wonder if the olcl man’s 
away.” 


182 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


The timorous Ballard began to lag dis- 
creetly, but the others walked up without much 
hesitation and displaced the cats on the broad 
doorstep, while Gershom plied the brass 
knocker respectfully. Nothing stirred within 
the house. The cats marched back and forth, 
mewing more vociferously than ever, and Ger- 
shom rapped again, exactly like a giant wood- 
pecker hammering on a hollow limb. Even 
the cynical Carroll began to look a little curi- 
ous. He tried the knob and the door, which 
was unfastened, opened and disclosed the liv- 
ing-room rank with the fumes from an expir- 
ing lamp that had consumed its oil and was now 
feeding upon its charred and smoldering wick. 

The lamp sobered the boys instantly. Evi- 
dently something was amiss or it would not 
have been left to burn out through the day- 
light hours. 

“I’m going in,” said Gershom. “Old man 
Moffat may be sick or — ” 

“Oh!” interrupted Ballard, skipping from 
the doorstep. “You can if you want to. You 
don’t catch me in there.” 

Stone and Carroll followed Gershom and 
Tutt into the house, but the other two boys 


THE JAPANESE WEATHER VANE 183 


remained outside. Except for the smoking 
lamp, the living-room was in its ordinary neat 
condition and an open door in the rear dis- 
closed an empty kitchen with clean pots and 
pans hanging in orderly rows. The bread- 
board was on the table with a loaf and some 
slices on it, and there were a couple of eggs 
broken into a bowl ; it was plain that the master 
of the house had suddenly ceased the prepara- 
tions for a meal. 

“There’s a door at the other end of the liv- 
ing-room,” said Carroll suggestively, after a 
comprehensive look at the table. “We’d bet- 
ter take a look in there.” 

“Yes; it’s his bedroom,” said Gershom. 
“Come on.” 

There was no noticeable alacrity, but no one 
actually funked and having returned to the 
living-room they opened the other door which 
was slightly ajar and looked in. In a sense 
they were prepared for what they saw, but the 
shock was swift nevertheless and all four were 
tongue-tied, except Carroll who, as he always 
did unconsciously when startled or puzzled, 
made a light clicking sound with his. 

Gershom presently stepped softly into the 


184 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


room and up to the bed, where old Moffat lay 
fully dressed with a damp reddish rag in his 
limp fingers and two stains of a similar color 
running down one side of his forehead from his 
bushy, iron-gray hair to his ear. His face was 
like the pale wax of a honeycomb, but to his 
great relief Gershom saw that the broad chest 
was moving gently. Moffat was breathing: 
therefore he was alive. 


CHAPTER XIII 


ASSAULT AND ROBBERY 

As soon as they found that Moffat was living, 
some ability to think returned to the boys ; they 
had been staring mechanically into the bedroom 
like four wooden images, each pair of eyes an 
apparent blank. Carroll went into the kitchen 
and finding the water in the kettle still warm 
brought back a basin of it and a towel with 
which he proceeded to wash the matted blood 
from Moffat’s face and hair. Gershom put a 
tin saucepan of milk on the few coals, while 
Tutt did what he could to make the old man 
more comfortable, removing his heavy boots 
and drawing a thick comforter over him. 
Stone went into the back yard for kindling to 
start a fresh fire and dispatched Ballard and 
his chum for Dr. Boyd. 

“Old man Moffat never did that himself,” 
said Carroll as he washed his hands at the sink. 
“Four nasty cuts and no two of them in the 

185 


186 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


same place. Somebody has been practicing 
on him with a shillalah.” 

“Yes, and I can make a pretty good guess 
who it was,” replied Gershom. “Those yel- 
low dogs, as he called them, have got back at 
him for the way he kept them off of us. Bill 
and I thought then they’d get even some day.” 

“They’ve beaten the old fellow badly and 
robbed him too, I guess,” said Tutt. “Let’s 
see if he will take some warm milk. He must 
be weak.” 

He pushed a spoonful between Moffat’s 
lips and presently the old man swallowed it 
slowly. His eyes opened, but though he 
seemed to look at the boys there was no recog- 
nition in his gaze. He drank more of the milk 
with evident relish and would have drained the 
cup, but Tutt was afraid to let him. 

“Too much may not be good for him if he’s 
in a fever,” he said. “He’d better not have 
any more till Dr. Boyd comes. We can cut 
up some wood and bring in some more coal 
while we’re waiting. The old man won’t be 
able to do much for some time.” 

Carroll was inclined to resent this sugges- 
tion. He had done one task on the impulse of 


ASSAULT AND ROBBERY 


187 


the moment and thought rather well of himself 
for doing it. He was naturally cold, selfish 
and lazy. Heavy work like cutting wood or 
bringing in coal did not appeal to him. 

“I don’t see any use in breaking my back,” 
he said. “Some one will have to he paid for 
taking care of the old man and I’m not idiot 
enough to do his work. Besides, Stone and I 
don’t want to meet the doctor. The less any 
one knows about our having been together this 
afternoon the better. You fellows will be 
all right if we cut away, won’t you?” 

“Oh, we don’t need you,” replied Gershom 
coldly. 

“So long then. Keep mum about Johnny 
Chadwick. I wish I’d warned that little fool 
of a Ballard.” 

Stone and Carroll left without wasting time 
and were presently hidden from sight in the 
woods. 

“Pretty poor sports!” said Tutt indignantly. 
“Good samples of Eaton — they act as if they 
always think they belong in the front pew un- 
less there’s some work to do.” 

Before Dr. Boyd arrived they had cut up a 
good pile of light birch and pitch-pine wood. 


188 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


Old Moffat had regained consciousness and 
asked for something to drink and Tutt was 
positive that he swore to himself when they 
brought him a glass of water. At any rate 
some color came into the old man’s cheeks and 
he greeted Dr. Boyd with a fleeting glance of 
recognition; but the boys were not at all sur- 
prised at this. The fine old doctor with his gen- 
tle manner and clear, keen, laughing eyes could 
make any sick creature feel a sudden sense 
of healing comfort. Gershom had never for- 
gotten his few visits. His very step in the 
front hall made something black and heavy 
rise from one’s mind and glide away like a 
frightened vulture; one felt that perhaps there 
was nothing the matter with one after all. 
When he came into the room and sat down by 
the bed one was sure of it, and answered his 
greeting with a smile that was half ashamed, 
half pleased, and put one’s hand into his strong, 
kindly hand with such a feeling of reliance 
and content that it seemed almost better to be 
lying there in bed than to be outdoors in the 
sunshine with the fellows. 

The boys were very curious to hear Dr. 
Boyd’s report, but when he had finished his 


ASSAULT AND ROBBERY 


189 


examination and bandaged his patient and had 
him in a comparatively comfortable state, it 
was the doctor who asked questions. Ballard 
had let fall a few vague hints and now he 
wished to hear the whole story, and the boys 
told him about the brass clock and their row 
with the Bloodsaws on the day they had taken 
refuge in Moffat’s house. While they talked 
the doctor sat at the living-room table, jot- 
ting down a statement now and then. He 
also wrote a little note which he folded up and 
handed to Tutt. 

“You know where the Careys live, don’t you, 
William?” he asked. “You can reach their 
house very quickly by going straight back from 
here and around the south side of Wyman’s 
hill. Please give this to Gertrude and say that 
I shall wait until she comes. You can carry 
her bag for her, you know.” 

Tutt started off at once. He was rather 
proud of his abilities as a cross-country run- 
ner and almost every month of the year he 
could be seen solemnly jogging along the turn- 
pike or the old Indian trail in a very abbre- 
viated costume. Gershom often made fun of 
him — Tutt took his runs so seriously — but in 


190 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


secret he admired Bill’s staying powers and 
serene perseverance. Tutt did not mind Ger- 
shom’s ridicule in the least; he had plenty of 
humor in his make-up, but he never let it — or 
any one else’s — interfere with his self-imposed 
training. 

During Bill’s absence Dr. Boyd and Ger- 
shom busied themselves about the house, ar- 
ranging things conveniently for Gertrude and 
turning the big lounge in the living-room into 
a temporary bed. They fed the cats and hens 
and MofF at’s aged horse and Gershom cleaned 
his stall and gave the creature a good currying. 
All was in order when Gertrude and Tutt ar- 
rived and the buxom, rosy-cheeked young 
woman laughingly declared that she would like 
to have them do a little house-cleaning in her 
own home. Through Dr. Boyd she had had 
some experience in nursing, and she had that 
natural tact and big-heartedness and a certain 
quiet deftness of manner which made her pres- 
ence most soothing to a patient. 

“You are not afraid to stay here, are you, 
Gertrude?” asked Dr. Boyd, when he had 
drawn up a short list of directions for her guid- 


ance. 


ASSAULT AND ROBBERY 


191 


“Afraid? No, sir,” replied Gertrude vig- 
orously. “I’ll take the broom to those Blood- 
saws if they try to bother me any. Besides, 
Dick’s coming over to spend the night with 
me. I didn’t want him, but mother thought 
he’d better.” 

“She is quite right,” said Dr. Boyd. “Now 
I think I’ll try to have a word with Moffat; 
he’s coming round in fine shape. He received 
some pretty hard knocks, but the old deep-sea 
captains of his generation were made with 
strong bones and stout constitutions, like their 
ships. They don’t build them like that any 
more, Gershom.” 

The doctor smiled and looked at Gershom’s 
well-knit figure with approval. “How you 
young fellows grow,” he said. “Unless one sees 
you every day one can hardly tell who you are. 
Let me see what the wood-chopping is doing 
for you.” He passed his firm, sensitive hand 
across Gershom’s back and shoulders and down 
his arm, and laughed, well-pleased. “Some 
day you ought to hold your own at any athletic 
sport, but don’t be in a hurry. Steady, regu- 
lar work with the ax and the hoe will do more 
for you now than all the hard indoor gymna- 


192 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


sium work you could get. And don’t forget 
that you have legs as well as arms; don’t be 
one-sided. You must remember that too, Wil- 
liam. Give your arms and back something to 
do as well as your legs.” 

The doctor strapped up his leather medical 
kit and went in to see MofF at alone. The boys 
listened anxiously, but though they could hear 
the sounds of two low voices occasionally they 
could not catch the drift of the conversation. 
When the doctor returned to the living-room 
he shook his head gravely. 

“It is just as we supposed; the three Blood- 
saws were concerned in this. It is strange and 
pitiable that with all the great good we have 
in the world there must be stupid crime too. 
What have those wretches gained but a few 
dollars which even if they bring a brief satis- 
faction will return a punishment vastly 
greater than any pleasure they can bring for 
the moment. I hate to be mixed up in such a 
thing,” he added, sighing, “but every one of us 
must do all we can to help the laws of our com- 
munity. I want one of you — I think it is 
Gershom’s turn — to see me through with this. 
If Gertrude hasn’t anything more for us to do, 


ASSAULT AND ROBBERY 


193 


we’ll drive over to Constable Fairbrother’s and 
let him set the legal wheels in motion.” 

Miss Carey was not so tender-hearted as the 
doctor. “I’ll be glad to see those three Portu- 
gee niggers where they belong and that’s in 
jail,” she said briskly. “I’m all right here. 
You drive along, Doctor, and be sure you 
spudge up Daniel Fairbr other; he’s so mortal 
slow that Pedro and the rest of ’em are liable 
to get half way to Canada before he gets done 
thinking about how to go at it.” 

Dr. Boyd laughed and hurried out to the 
stable, and soon he and Gershom were being 
carried swiftly over the frozen road by the big 
bay mare, who was as well known to the farm- 
ers of the neighborhood as the doctor himself. 
Constable Fairbrother lived at the eastern end 
of the town, in an old brick-ended white house 
that had once been a tavern, and of which he 
would have made an excellent host, as he had 
just the figure for it and liked nothing better 
than a companionable smoke and talk with all 
comers. He was, perhaps, a little unwieldy 
in mind and body, but he had a very judicial 
manner and was exceedingly firm in his opin- 
ions, and this habit of laying down the law had 


194 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


finally made him the custodian of it, so far as 
Eastmarsh was concerned. 

Mr. Fairbrother considered it a weakness for 
one in an official position like his ever to betray 
the slightest surprise at anything, and he lis- 
tened to Dr. Boyd and Gershom as if he was 
already perfectly familiar with the news. He 
puff ed at his pipe a little faster than usual, but 
behind the cloud of smoke he kept an impene- 
trable expression, exasperating the good doc- 
tor very much, and the latter presently be- 
trayed his irritation. 

“I don’t think there should be any delay in 
this matter,” he said. “Those Bloodsaw boys 
are too cunning to be caught like a lot of rab- 
bits. You can depend upon it that they will 
find out about my visit to Moff at and get away 
to some hiding place and it will be like search- 
ing for a needle in a hay-stack then, for all those 
foreigners help each other in such cases.” 

“I think I understand my duty, Dr. Boyd,” 
said Mr. Fairbrother solemnly. “I am much 
obliged to you for your report.” 

“You will get after them at once, I hope,” 
persisted the doctor. 

The constable knocked the stale ashes from 
his pipe and proceeded to refill it. 


ASSAULT AND ROBBERY 


195 


“I shall uphold the law,” he said. 

There was no more to be got out of him, and 
Dr. Boyd left in rather a huff. 

“There’s an example,” he said to Gershom as 
they drove away, “of the ineffective operation 
of town government. We get to know each 
other a good deal too well, like the members of 
a big family, and the dislike of hurting a 
friend’s feelings interferes with proper politics. 
Dan Fairbrother’s as good a man as he can 
be; kind-hearted and upright; but he’s not an 
efficient constable and we all know it. His 
appointment was all very well in the. first place. 
He never should have been re-appointed after 
his incompetency was a matter of common 
knowledge, but it’s just as I said: he’ll go on 
being constable because nobody cares to hurt 
Dan’s feelings by voting against him. He 
ought to be half way to the Bloodsaws now 
with his deputy; but he’ll sit there till he gets 
good and ready to move, and I shan’t be a 
bit surprised if those rascals slip through our 
fingers.” 

It happened exactly as the doctor had fore- 
seen. Mr. Fairbrother concluded that it was 
too late and dark to make his descent upon the 
Bloodsaws that evening, and the next morning 


196 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


when he drove to their farm with Renshaw, his 
assistant, the three birds had flown. They had 
what was almost a fight with Manuel and his 
dusky wife, who were at first inclined to drive 
the visitors away by force. Not quite daring 
to make their threats good they contented them- 
selves by swearing at the officials, and assuring 
them that the boys would shoot them down 
rather than submit to arrest. 

The constable came away thoroughly 
aroused at last, and in his chagrin at letting the 
Bloodsaws slip through his fingers he was ready 
to adopt the most strenuous measures to cap- 
ture them. Fortunately for him Harry 
Forbes, who had been out fishing through the 
ice the night before, had some news for him. 
On his way home along the edge of Ten Mile 
Lake he had seen three figures among the 
swamp maples and leafless birches. They car- 
ried guns and acted so peculiarly, slinking 
rapidly and quietly away when they saw him 
plainly outlined against the background of 
ice, that he was startled and had puzzled over 
the incident until he heard of the accusation 
against the Bloodsaws the next day. Harry 
was positive that the men he had met were the 


ASSAULT AND ROBBERY 


197 


three sons of Manuel and he was equally sure 
that they were heading for Juniper Island, a 
dense and gloomy thicket in the swamp with 
which he and his fellow Mud Hens were more 
or less familiar. 

The constable set to work to get a posse to- 
gether at once. The telephone wires buzzed 
all over town, and few of the men who were 
notified refused to join the hunt. In a re- 
markably short time Mr. Fairbrother’s yard 
was filled with a heterogeneous collection of 
vehicles, some of whose keen-eyed, lean-faced 
owners were armed and some were not, except 
for that inflexible Yankee spirit which refuses 
to be surprised or cowed by anything. 

By common consent the older boys stayed 
away from school to join in the hunt. It was 
taken as a matter of course that they would 
help, just as they were called upon to face 
any emergency on the farm. Most of them 
had guns and could shoot almost as well as 
their pioneer forbears and many of them knew 
the big swamp far better than their fathers. 
But since their youth might make them reck- 
less, they were divided among the various 
squads of men, and the fact that obedience was 
expected of them was grimly emphasized. 


198 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“Any of you boys caught outside the lines 
will be put under arrest — unless you can prove 
you are there under orders,” said Constable 
Fairbrother, regarding Bill Tutt and Harry 
Forbes with special menace. These two youths 
had once tied the tails of the constable’s pigs 
together and the ingenious feat had never been 
forgotten or forgiven. Fairbrother had often 
prophesied a gloomy and dishonored end for 
them. As a matter of precaution he had as- 
signed them to diff erent squads, much to their 
disgust. 

“If he’d only let us scout on our own hook, 
we’d show them a thing or two,” grumbled 
Bill, as the squads began to file off. “The old 
duffers mean all right, but they don’t know 
Cold Stream swamp like our crowd.” 

“They’ll get lost and bogged in the mud and 
the whole thing will fall flat as a flounder,” re- 
plied Harry with corresponding pessimism. 
“Well, so long. There’s old Simpkins waving 
at me and I’ve got to toddle. What on earth 
ails Gersh that he ain’t here?” 

“Cow broke out of pasture,” said Bill. “I’m 
off, too. Glad I was put with Charlie Hatch. 
He knows something. So long.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE MAN HUNT 

Just after Constable Fairbrother rang up Mr. 
Foy to secure his aid and that of Charlie 
Hatch, the telephone bell buzzed again and an 
officious but well-meaning neighbor informed 
them that old Jule was trotting off down the 
shore road. 

“You run along and fetch the cow back and 
then you can join us,” said Mr. Foy. “I guess 
Watson would have gone after her, but prob- 
ably he was in a hurry to meet the posse.” 

He wiped off the goose oil dripping from the 
lock of his old muzzle-loader and went out 
with Charlie Hatch, who was armed with a 
pitch-fork and a game-bag full of frozen tur- 
nips carefully selected from a discarded pile of 
winter vegetables. Gershom got a halter and 
a whip, for Jule was a fractious animal, and 
started off down the shore road in no very 
pleasant frame of mind. His only hope was 
that Jule would see an inviting-looking farm- 
199 


200 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


yard and turn into it ; but the nipping weather 
had evidently roused the old cow’s spirit, the 
marks of her cloven feet showing that her gait 
was an exuberant one. She did not leave the 
road until she reached the Slosson place, where 
the shiftless Herbert had left half an acre of 
field corn to bleach and wither, and there she 
was, tossing a greedy muzzle among the rus- 
tling stalks, with a little flock of Canada tree- 
sparrows fluttering in her wake. 

Mrs. Slosson thrust her head out of the 
kitchen window as Gershom sidled in among 
the corn. 

44 You Foy boy!” she called in a shrill voice. 
4 4 What d’ you mean by letting that cow eat up 
our grain? Don’t you give her nothing at 
home, eh? D’ you think we cal’late to fatten 
your critters for you, eh? You get her out’n 
there and be quick about it. If Mr. Slosson 
hadn’t gone traipsing off with a pack of fool 
men folks and left a poor woman to look out 
for things, I’d make him show you and your 
folks that you can’t tread us under your feet 
like we was dirt and go round with a grin on 
your face. Now, you get her out’n there 
quick, you hear me.” 


THE MAN HUNT 


201 


“I hear you all right/’ replied Gershom. 
“And I’m getting her out, ain’t I?” 

“What d’ you mean by talking back to me, 
you sassy, imperdent, long-legged boy, you!” 
shrilled Mrs. Slosson, thrusting the upper half 
of her unkempt person out of the window. 
“Interrupting me right in the middle and be- 
fore I’d got a chance to say anything, and your 
father’s jest like you and you can tell him I 
said so, with my compliments. And as for 
you, you jest wait till I tell Mr. Slosson how 
you came round here sassying me and I guess 
you won’t show your face this side of the town 
again in a hurry or you’ll be sorry for it.” 

“Oh, will I!” replied the goaded Gershom. 
“Tell Mr. Slosson anything you want to; I 
ain’t afraid of him.” 

Another storm of abuse was his answer, but 
Gershom had got old Jule under way at last 
and he strode off in her wake, without paying 
any attention to the tirade, though he was ex- 
cessively irritated. 

“Johnny Slosson and the rest of the bunch 
are always on hand when our chestnuts are 
ripe, or there are any May flowers in our grove, 
I notice, but of course that’s different,” he 


202 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


growled to himself. “Just wait till he comes 
again, though. Get up, there, you old fool. 
It’s just like you to pick out Slosson’s place 
to prance round in.” 

He gave the loitering Jule a cut with the 
rope-end and she swerved into an unfenced 
stretch of waste land and went buck- jumping 
through the gray bay-berry bushes and gnarled 
beach-plums. Though old, she was lean and 
agile. Gershom chased her for fifteen min- 
utes before he finally cornered her in an angle 
of a stone wall and forced the halter over her 
head, and all the rest of the way home she al- 
ternately balked and plunged. 

In consequence, the constable’s yard held 
nothing but heavily blanketed horses when Ger- 
shom arrived there at last with his ten-gauge 
under his arm. The posse had departed an 
hour before, Mrs. Fairbrother said, and she 
explained the direction it had taken; but as 
soon as he knew that Cold Stream swamp was 
the objective point, Gershom began to formu- 
late his own theories. 

“They won’t be in the north part, that’s 
sure,” he said to himself as he tramped across 
the frozen fields. “That’s too near home and 


THE MAN HUNT 


203 


it isn’t thick enough. They may try to get 
across the lake and into the woods on the other 
side, or they may work out to the east and steal 
a boat that they could run down the coast in. 
I’ll cut looking for the posse and scout along 
the east side, I guess.” 

Avoiding the rough country into which the 
posse had plunged, he walked rapidly across 
the open fields, and rounding the northeastern 
corner of the swamp, entered it at a point about 
a quarter of a mile south. Ahead he could see 
the dead, towering, white pine where he and 
Bill had found a nest of young flying squirrels. 
Swamp water had flowed in about the pine and 
killed it, for it stood in the bottom of a little 
basin. It was one of the worst holes in the 
swamp, but as there was no good cover there 
Gershom did not stop to investigate, and kept 
on through the thickening growth of junipers 
and bog scrub. 

A dry, rapid rustling brought him to a sud- 
den halt with his heart in his mouth. It was 
only a pigeon-woodpecker that had decided to 
winter in the swamp instead of going south. 
It swung off in its undulating flight, the under 
surface of its wings flashing like sun-lit gold 


204 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


for an instant, and as it disappeared among the 
junipers a gun shot rang out some distance 
away toward the west. 

Gershom dodged behind a tree and stood 
waiting with his finger on the trigger of his 
ten-gauge; but not a sound was to be heard 
save the distant wiry little note of a myrtle 
warbler. Presently that ceased and all was 
as still as a windless, winter day can be. 

“Some chump thought he saw something,” 
Gershom concluded, and recommenced his 
wary advance. 

He had decided to scout as far as the eastern 
end of Juniper Island, where he could wait 
for the posse and be in a position to detect 
any shoreward movement the Bloodsaws might 
make. He had no idea of exposing himself to 
their fire if he could help it, since at least one 
of them was armed with a rifle. But he knew 
the swamp so well that he believed he ran no 
great risk. Keeping pretty well out toward 
its eastern edge, he passed west of Silas Cot- 
ton’s lonely farm and turned into the aban- 
doned, scrub-grown road which led to the old 
menhaden factory. 

The process of trying out this very oily fish 


THE MAN HUNT 


205 


is not a fragrant one, and Eastmarsh had in- 
sisted that if the factory was to do business 
within the town limits it should be in as isolated 
a situation as possible. The company had 
been successful at first, but trade had finally 
waned, and a fire had put the finishing touch 
to it. The walls of the abandoned factory lay 
in crumbling heaps, around which a border of 
stag-horn sumacs had sprung up; a rusty 
boiler and a snarl of twisted pipes, like snakes 
petrified in their death agonies, sprawled below 
the great brick chimney which reared itself 
above the heads of the pines, still intact though 
streaked and blackened by the weather. 

It struck Gershom all at once that the ruins 
off ered some excellent hiding places. He slid 
into the scrub by the roadside and studied them 
warily; then satisfied that all was well he en- 
tered what had once been the factory yard, 
now rank with sumac, young birches and pitch 
pines, and passing a mass of fallen bricks 
started round the western face of the big chim- 
ney. He was less than half way around when 
he heard something rattle and in another mo- 
ment the black, cruel face of Pedro peered from 
behind the column of brick. 


206 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


The surprise was mutual. For an instant 
they stared at each other blankly and then, 
like a jack-in-the-box, Pedro’s head disap- 
peared. Gershom wheeled and darted back, 
and as he did so he heard an oath and the sound 
of several voices: all three of the Bloodsaws 
had been hiding there. A shout and a loud 
rattling and rustling showed that they had 
recovered from their surprise and were after 
him. 

A worse place for the encounter could not 
have been picked. The growth was low and 
thin and the firm ground favored the nimble 
Portuguese. Gershom could not hope to 
make a run for it without exposing the broad 
of his back to the Bloodsaws’ rifles, and he 
felt certain that they were desperate enough 
to kill him if they could. Instead of keeping 
straight on toward the swamp, he turned 
sharply and ran along under the face of the 
wall he had just passed. His pursuers were 
equally swift. As he reached the end of the 
wall he looked backward and saw the three of 
them round the stack; but divining his plan 
Dolph instantly left his brothers and raced 
back again. 


THE MAN HUNT 207 

He might have expected that they would 
not be so weak-witted as to follow him in a 
pack. Now, divided, they were sure to cor- 
ner him in a few minutes unless he ran straight 
on into the open woods or crept into some se- 
cure nook among the ruins. The latter seemed 
the better plan, for the factory was close at 
hand and the woods, he knew, were far too 
open at that point to protect him from a rifle 
bullet. Accordingly, he bounded across the 
fallen front wall and into the cellar heaped 
with debris, across which he ran at the imminent 
danger of breaking a leg. 

The three Bloodsaws, running around the 
edge of the walls, knew what had happened 
as soon as they met. Gershom could not have 
taken to the woods without one of them seeing 
him; therefore he had sought refuge in the 
ruins. They swarmed over a low place in the 
wall and Gershom heard the angry shout that 
announced their discovery of his trick. 

“Hi! Stop!” roared Pedro. “You run 
away and I’ll kill you!” 

The fore part of the interior face of the chim- 
ney jutted out in an elongated arch like a 
great Dutch oven. Rust-caked pipes and 


208 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


loose bricks were strewn before its black mouth, 
but Ger shorn judged that there was room 
enough for his body to pass. He made a fly- 
ing dive into it, throwing his gun ahead of him. 
His head struck one of the pipes a glancing 
blow and the rain of golden specks that seemed 
to dance before his eyes for an instant was fol- 
lowed by a stream of hot blood; but he scram- 
bled forward without a pause through the cin- 
der-paved passage to the wide base of the flue. 
Originally the opening had been larger here, 
but now it was almost blocked by a thick mat 
of decayed feathers, twigs, broken eggs and 
foul litter, dropped by the colony of swifts 
that had inhabited the chimney for years. The 
stench that rose from it was fearful, but the 
clattering sound of the Portuguese’ feet as 
they clambered over the debris without con- 
quered Gershom’s repugnance. 

He wormed his way into the flue in a cloud 
of pungent dust and stood upright between 
the four soot-hung walls of the stack. At the 
same instant something flashed crimson in the 
passage and a muffled, shaking explosion 
brought a cascade of soot upon his head and 
shoulders. His legs felt the vibration of the 


THE MAN HUNT 


209 


mat of refuse on which he stood as the rifle 
bullet pierced it: it was lucky for him that he 
h^d it to stand on, but the next bullet might 
be fired at an angle that would expose him to 
the danger of being hit. 

His hand swept the wall for something by 
which he could raise himself and brushed a 
projecting spike. It was iron and strongly 
embedded in the bricks and mortar. Gripping 
this and finding some toe-holds in the wall, he 
lifted himself a foot or so and touched with his 
exploring hand another spike a short distance 
above the first. Mounting by these, he soon 
discovered others set in the wall and he rightly 
guessed that they had been put there to form 
a rude sort of ladder by which workmen might 
ascend the flue to clean or repair it. 

Ger shorn now felt more or less safe. He did 
not believe that any of his pursuers would be 
sufficiently foolhardy to crawl into the flue after 
him, since they knew he was armed. Standing 
on one of the spikes and holding on by another, 
he found his position not particularly uncom- 
fortable, as the flue was so narrow that with- 
out crowding him its walls were close enough 
together to give his body a certain support. 


210 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


He even began to grin a little at having es- 
caped so neatly. Some of the posse were 
bound to swing in that direction before long 
and the Bloodsaws would certainly not care to 
be caught so near the edge of the swamp. 

Enough light came in through the arched 
passage to illuminate faintly the mass of refuse 
below him, but presently this was extinguished, 
and he heard a dry rustling and scratching that 
made him choke with sudden fear. Were the 
Bloodsaws creeping in to murder him! His 
gun stood at the bottom of the shaft; he was 
too frightened to move. The rustling con- 
tinued at irregular intervals and he was able to 
judge that the sounds were not caused by any- 
thing creeping into the passage. He began 
to realize that the Portuguese were stuffing 
something into its throat — bottling him up in 
the old chimney. 

The thought was unpleasant enough, but the 
sequel was much worse. A pale glow shone in 
the blackness beneath him, accompanied by an 
odd, snapping sound and then an acrid vapor 
stung his nose. They were going to smoke 
him out as he and Bill Tutt had smoked out 
the family of flying squirrels in the old white 


THE MAN HUNT 


211 


pine! There was one decided difference in 
the situations : the squirrels had had the 
branches of the pine to retreat to, whereas 
there appeared to be no haven of refuge for 
him. 

If he descended and tried to force his way 
out, they might shoot him like a dog. Uncer- 
tain as to what course to take, he clung to the 
iron spikes in a despairing daze until a puff 
of greasy smoke eddied up around him and set 
him gasping. At any rate, he could not hang 
there and be cooked like a ham in a smoke- 
house flue. There was nothing to be gained 
by delay. Only one possible avenue lay open 
to him and that was up the chimney: what he 
should do when he reached the top — if he could 
reach it — was a point to be settled later. 

Frantically at first and then more slowly 
as he realized what a slip would mean, Ger- 
shom began to mount the series of iron spikes. 
The smoke had grown so dense that at times 
he had to stop and glue his lips to the bricks 
in order to get a breath of fairly pure air : but 
the chimney was cold and his body acted as a 
kind of damper, and presently he rose above 
the thickest of the vapor and as his head cleared 
a little of his courage began to return. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE WRECK OF THE DIRIGIBLE 

On the eastern edge of the swamp was the 
old Silas Cotton farm, lying about half way 
between Eastmarsh and Clairville in as lonely 
a situation as could have been selected in that 
neighborhood. The Cottons were a reserved, 
clannish family with more than a touch of that 
Yankee ingenuity which has made New Eng- 
land the birthplace of so many useful inven- 
tions. Silas Cotton, the first, had launched a 
self-feeding manger upon an appreciative rural 
market and unlike most of his kind he had de- 
rived profit from his patent. The manger had 
brought in a good bit of money; enough, the 
town wags said, to feed his son while he fooled 
away his time on other inventions. But Silas, 
the second, did not fool away all of his time. 
To the surprise of the wiseacres he turned out 
a vegetable grater and a butter churn that 
added to the surplus laid away by his father 

and gave the second Silas courage to attempt 

212 


THE WRECK OF THE DIRIGIBLE 213 


something really big. Electricity and gaso- 
line, motors and airships, were the means and 
ends that were occupying the inventive minds 
of the day and Cotton caught the fever as badly 
as any of them. 

His latest toy was a dirigible balloon, though 
it is hardly fair to call it a toy. He believed 
with Count Zeppelin that the dirigible was a 
more practical machine for triumphing over 
the difficulties of aerial transportation than the 
monoplane or bi-plane, and though the Comet 
had not made any long flights it had done very 
well over short distances. The problem was 
to adjust its mechanism to meet successfully the 
various air currents that are continually play- 
ing more or less at random above the earth. 

Cotton did not learn of the trouble at Mof- 
fat’s and the man-hunt until late that morn- 
ing. He was shocked, like every one else, but 
he lived so much apart from Eastmarsh in 
every sense that his farm might as well have 
been in another State. He had been keying 
up the Comet for the past week and had her, 
he believed, almost at the point of perfection. 
He and his son, Frank, were only waiting for 
a promising day to test her out, and neither of 


214 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


them could think of much else. There wasn’t 
a gun in the house and Mr. Cotton concluded 
that, as he couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn 
door if he should try, the man-hunt didn’t need 
him. After briefly discussing the assault, 
they dismissed it from their minds and went to 
work at a last inspection of the Comet. 

The weather was just what they had been 
waiting for. It did not seem like winter at 
all, but like a day borrowed in advance from 
tender May, arched with that month’s soft blue 
sky and warmed by a brilliant sun of almost 
torrid force. Not a current of wind stirred, 
though a strong tang of the sea was in the air. 
It needed only the springing of young green 
on the bare branches to complete the illusion. 

A man-hunt seemed a trifling thing com- 
pared to an epoch-making test of the Comet, 
and very soon Mr. Cotton and Frank were 
deep in the delightful work of examining the 
dirigible’s frame as it sat in the wheeled cradle 
which permitted it to be shifted about in the 
long pen, or work yard. One of the twin pro- 
peller blades was somewhat loose in its metal 
collar, but the tightening of a nut seemed all 
that was necessary to remedy the fault and 


THE WRECK OF THE DIRIGIBLE 215 


when this was done the airship was ready for 
her trip. 

They shoved the cradle to the eastern end 
of the yard and then threw open the double 
flaps of the wooden gate. Thin, wiry Frank 
climbed the steps and straddled the narrow 
saddle which hung below the delicately floating 
bag. Under him, fore and aft, ran the long 
ladder-like frame which spread between his 
legs like an inverted V. In front of him was 
the light but powerful engine whose shaft 
stretched forward to the propeller at the bow. 

“Take it easy,” cautioned his father. “Try 
her as much as you can on the low speed.” 

Frank nodded and swung the crank of the 
engine, which responded with its violent phit! 
phit! phut! phurr-rr! the explosions growing 
more rapid until their vicious staccato merged 
into a mellow drone and the aluminum propel- 
ler blades made a gray disk in the air. Frank 
worked himself back to the framework behind 
the saddle. The Comet’s nose tilted upward 
and she glided from her cradle with a fish-like 
flirt of her tail. 

“Don’t be out more than two hours,” shouted 
Mr. Cotton. He stood for a few minutes with 


216 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


arms akimbo, watching the strong rush of the 
dirigible through the yellow sunlight. Then 
he started back to the house, from whose sky- 
light he intended to follow the Comet’s evolu- 
tions by means of a long brass telescope. 

When he had reached a proper altitude 
Frank crawled up the frame of the Comet and, 
seating himself in the little saddle, brought her 
to an even keel. The cold, white spire of the 
old Unitarian church, gleaming like a great 
spar above its sea of pines, swam by on the 
north. He pulled the tiller ropes, and the 
rudder — two intersecting planes of canvas 
stiffened with bamboo strips — swung the 
obedient Comet parallel with the distant turn- 
pike. She was now riding directly with an 
upper current of air and she rose and dipped 
like a running vessel, though with much longer, 
smoother swoops. 

Beyond the swamp and Ten Mile Lake on 
the west stretched many acres of barren little 
hills, breaking at their crests into naked sand, 
the intervening dells studded with twisted, 
thick-limbed scrub. Towards this stretch of 
country Frank pointed the Comet’s silk nose. 
It was a capital place over which to maneuver 


THE WRECK OF THE DIRIGIBLE 217 


as the absence of tall trees and the many bare 
spaces made it possible to alight easily if any- 
thing went wrong with the machine. 

The Eastmarsh posse had already pene- 
trated some little distance into the swamp as 
Frank passed over it, but the evergreen growth 
was so dense that he could not see any of the 
men and for the same reason they did not see 
him, and he was too high for the buzz of the 
motor to reach their ears. As a matter of 
fact, absorbed in the management of the 
Comet, he did not think of the man-hunt at all. 
Engine and airship were doing splendidly, and 
though the air was cold at that altitude he had 
never enjoyed the work so much. 

He knew that back at the farmhouse his 
father was watching him through the brass 
telescope, but he decided to have a few ‘Taney” 
evolutions in spite of it. Crossing the lake he 
reached the area of barren land and began to 
put the Comet through her best paces. He 
rose, dove, “turned on his heel,” and cut con- 
centric circles above the shrub-dotted sand for 
nearly an hour. In the last sharp twist his 
ear caught an ominous sound from the propel- 
ler, and fearing that the troublesome nut had 


218 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


worked loose again, he concluded to return 
home as quickly as possible. 

Laying his course straight for the tall red 
chimney rising above the trees on the farther 
side of the swamp, he put on full speed. An 
almost imperceptible vibration of the light 
shaft convinced him that the propeller was 
not spinning quite true, but the Comet shot 
ahead swiftly on a level keel. A good breeze 
had begun to sway the tree tops and whistle 
through the wire rigging of the airship, but 
Frank believed that she would reach the farm 
without any difficulty. 

The old factory chimney stood directly be- 
tween him and the farm, whose small clearings 
were hidden by the surrounding trees. In his 
homeward trips Frank had always used the 
chimney as a landmark. Since the fire, twelve 
years before, it had stood there unused except 
by the summer colony of swifts, and Frank’s 
surprise was great when he saw a light haze of 
smoke mount the clear air above it. 

He laid the course of the Comet a point 
nearer. In addition to the smoke there was 
something peculiar about the top of the chim- 
ney: a black object protruded slightly above it. 


THE WRECK OF THE DIRIGIBLE 219 


Full of curiosity, Frank slowed down the en- 
gine and passing as close to the stack as he 
dared, bent sideways in the saddle and looked 
down. 

The black object was a man, who raised his 
arm and waved a handkerchief at the Comet. 
His surprising situation, his signal and the 
smoke eddying about him plainly showed that 
he was in a predicament. Frank swung the 
Comet about and headed back, wondering 
whether, if he threw the anchor rope to the 
fellow, it would be possible to pull him from 
the stack without a dangerous degree of vio- 
lence. He lifted the coil from the hooks be- 
hind the saddle and hesitated. If the man 
should seize the rope, his weight might be too 
much for the delicately poised dirigible and 
they might both fall to the ground. 

Frank looked down. Three men were 
standing among the ruins of the factory, star- 
ing up at him with evident amazement. He 
was not so high up but that he could realize 
this and that their faces were very dark. For 
a moment they stared at each other as the 
Comet drifted along; then one of them threw 
a gun to his shoulder and fired, and Frank 


220 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


heard the shrill hum of a bullet within a foot 
of his head. 

Instinctively he put on full speed, and slid- 
ing into the framework back of the saddle 
sent the Comet tilting at the clouds. The man 
did not fire again. But Frank, crouching flat, 
continued his rapid ascent until the belief that 
he was out of range restored his courage. 
When he crept back into the saddle he was 
startled to see the altitude he had reached. He 
slowed the engine down abruptly and with a 
sickening kick the flywheel stopped and the 
propeller blades made a few feeble revolutions 
and came to a stand. 

As he worked over the dead engine some- 
thing about the Comet’s actions filled Frank 
with a new uneasiness. She was drifting off 
before an upper air-current, and the long shut- 
tle-shaped bag wriggled and wobbled fretfully. 
Her skin looked less taut than it ought to be 
and all at once, as he studied her, he perceived 
the secret of her behavior: the forward end of 
her belly had been pierced by the bullet. 

Rigid with fright, Frank saw the bullet hole 
gradually spread into a wide slit, as the brittle, 
distended silk gave way before the internal 


THE WRECK OF THE DIRIGIBLE 221 

pressure of the gas. While he looked, a long- 
lipped opening gaped, through which the 
Comet began to belch her hydrogen, whose ef- 
forts to escape were slowly but surely tearing 
open her whole snout. The long belly of the 
Comet began to work as if it were breathing, 
and her tail sank gently: it fell foot by foot, 
her wounded nose rising upward until she stood 
nearly on end and still sinking. 

Frank wrapped his arms and legs convul- 
sively about the framework, bitterly regretting 
that he had driven the Comet so far upward. 
In a few moments she would begin to fall in 
earnest, and with the loss of each square foot 
of gas her speed would increase until long be- 
fore the point of safety could be reached she 
would be shooting downward with terrific ve- 
locity, a tattered wreck. There wouldn’t be 
much left of him when they struck. He might 
as well let go at once and save himself the tor- 
ture of anticipation, for death was eoually cer- 
tain in either case. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE FIGHT AT MUSKRAT HOLE 

Under the feeling of terror that shook Frank 
there was a subconscious self, actively consid- 
ering the problem from every side. He was 
not born of a line of inventive Cottons for 
nothing. The ability to think and act quickly 
in the face of emergencies had become a sort 
of family inheritance, and while one part of 
his brain was acutely conscious of the leaping- 
up of the earth toward him, there was another 
side that coolly selected the most feasible rem- 
edy from among the several that presented 
themselves. He perceived that the falling of 
the Comet hastened her doom by pressing in 
her tail, thus aiding the naturally volatile gas 
to escape from the upper end. If the balloon 
were reversed the resistance of the air would 
help to confine the lighter hydrogen within the 
bag. 

Not a great deal of time had been lost, even 


THE FIGHT AT MUSKRAT HOLE 22 $ 


though seconds meant so much. Frank began 
to crawl upward, worming his way over the 
still engine and creeping from cross-bar to 
cross-bar. The throes of the Comet were vio- 
lent as she felt her center of balance shifted. 
She lurched drunkenly from right to left and 
back again like an inverted pendulum, but her 
snout began to droop and as she came down to 
an even keel Frank swung himself around 
quickly so that he faced her tail. He gained 
his new position not a moment too soon. As 
his feet struck the propeller the tail of the 
Comet jumped upward, and puffing out her 
yellow cheeks she continued her dive head first. 

It was difficult at first to judge the rate of 
speed at which she was falling. It seemed to 
Frank that she was almost stationary, but he 
knew this to be a common illusion in balloon- 
ery. Still, there was only a gentle movement 
in the air about him and the varnished silk 
close to his face showed so plump and rigid he 
felt sure that the gas was escaping to a less 
dangerous extent. 

They must have fallen very rapidly at the 
start, for the ground looked startlingly near. 
It made him rather sick to look down, but there 


224 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


was a fascination in it and it soon brought the 
comforting assurance that the Comet, spinning 
feebly like a dying top, was falling quite 
gently. If the gas held out he would be all 
right. 

Down, down sank the dirigible with her 
loosened silk fluttering. A mild gust eased 
her descent and she dropped into a grove of 
junipers like a wounded bird, but with force 
enough to shake Frank from her frame. A 
hundred little, tough, twisted branches received 
him and he sank into them as into tangled 
masses of wire springs. Though shaken and 
well scratched, the accident had ended so sim- 
ply and happily that he could hardly believe 
his good luck, and he did not know which he 
wanted to do most, laugh or cry. 

Now that he was safe himself, he thought of 
the man on the smoking top of the big chim- 
ney. Something must be done to rescue him; 
but he could not hope to do it single-handed 
because of the three outlaws in the ruins. He 
surmised that these must be the three Portu- 
guese for whose capture the posse had been 
organized that morning. The thing to do was 
to find some member of the posse at once. 


THE FIGHT AT MUSKRAT HOLE £25 


There was nothing he could do for the poor 
Comet at the moment, and he knew that his 
father must have seen her fall and that he was 
probably already hurrying to the scene of the 
accident. 

He took an envelope from his pocket and 
hastily wrote on it: Am all right; have 
joined the posse. Frank. This he pinned 
to the trunk of the most conspicuous juniper 
and was starting off, rather uncertain as to 
the best direction to take, when Charlie Hatch 
and Bill Tutt came running toward him 
through the trees. 

“Get hurt any?” called Hatch. 

“No. Only a scratch or two,” said Frank. 
“But the Comet’s torn wide open.” 

“I saw you coming down. Bill and I 
thought you were a goner,” said Hatch, puff- 
ing from his run. “All I can say is you’ve 
got courage to fly in that contraption. I 
wouldn’t put foot in it for a million cash. 
How’d it happen?” 

“I was shot at,” said Frank, and he related 
his recent strange experience. 

“A man in the old chimney — and the Blood- 
saws smoking him out! That beats my cats 


226 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


for nerve/’ exclaimed Hatch. “They won’t 
hang there long, though, I’ll bet.” 

He put his two forefingers between his lips 
and blew shrilly, and presently, at some dis- 
tance. west, an answering whistle sounded. 

“We’ve only Bill’s gun between us,” he said. 
“We need at least one more to hold up that 
bunch of niggers, and I ain’t sure we could do 
it with that. A few more of us, though, may 
scare ’em.” 

In a few minutes Constable Fairbrother 
himself appeared with Renshaw and the shift- 
less Slosson, who was armed with a muzzle- 
loading rifle whose prodigiously long barrel 
was secured to its frame by a great quantity 
of copper wire. Hatch briefly communicated 
the news to the three men and without any 
further delay they set out for the menhaden 
factory, Hatch, Fairbrother and Renshaw 
leading, and Slosson bringing up the rear with 
the two hoys. As they worked their way 
swiftly but cautiously through the heavy 
growth, Slosson maintained a most warlike and 
ruthless demeanor. 

“I’ve got a gun here that’ll outshoot any- 
thing in these parts,” he remarked to the boys. 


THE FIGHT AT MUSKRAT HOLE m 


“She’s old, but she’ll bum ’em up. It takes 
me to shoot her, though. I’m used to her. 
My eye’ll jump that wire round her and allow 
for it and pick up the forward sight jest as if I 
could look flush along the barrel, and when that 
bead’s onto anything you can tell it good-by. 
Let ’em get behind a tree if they want to. I 
guess them Portugee niggers will when they 
see me ; but it won’t do ’em no good. I got a 
charge in her that’ll knock splinters out’n the 
tother side of any tree in this swamp.” 

“It’s lucky you were round,” said Frank, 
looking at the venerable weapon with respect. 

“Lucky! I guess those Bloodsaws won’t 
think so,” replied Slosson. “Jest let me get 
a fair sight at one of ’em — or two, if I can get 
’em in line — and the cusses’ll never know what 
hit ’em. If she warn’t a muzzle-loader I guess 
I’d get the third, too.” 

Cautioning the boys to keep close beside 
him so that he could protect them, Slosson 
crept through the swamp as if the leaders had 
not been over the ground, and in this order 
they reached the old factory, only to find that 
the Bloodsaws had gone. But a shout from 
the top of the chimney and an arm waving over 


228 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


its rim showed that the man Frank had seen 
was still in his precarious position. How he 
had got there or how they could get him down 
were questions to be met later. As a first step 
they pulled the burning brush from the arch 
and as the smoke ceased to stream up the flue 
the man at the top disappeared. 

Presently as they stood consulting together 
a grimy shape, pushing a gun before it, 
emerged on all fours from the arch and Bill 
Tutt uttered a startled cry. 

“It’s Gersh Foy!” he exclaimed, recognizing 
the blackened face of his friend before the 
others. 

While they helped him to his feet and dusted 
clouds of soot from his clothes, Gershom told 
of his meeting with the Portuguese and his es- 
cape up the chimney, whose interior ladder of 
spikes fortunately ran clear to the top; other- 
wise he might have been suffocated in the flue. 

“ That’s what comes of letting you go by 
yourself on a job like this,” said the constable. 
“All of you boys ought to have been locked up 
at home to-day. The whole bunch of you 
haven’t got brains enough to supply a chicka- 
dee.” 


THE EIGHT AT MUSKRAT HOLE 229 


“Well, I can tell you where the Bloodsaws 
are, anyway,” said Gershom, with a faint grin 
for Bill’s benefit. “Do you know the Musk- 
rat Hole?” 

“No, I don’t,” replied the constable shortly. 
“There’s no such name as that down on the 
Eastmarsh county map as I’ve heard of.” 

“I know it,” said Tutt, who, in common with 
all the other Mud Hens, had an intimate 
knowledge of the swamp. 

“You and I can show them where it is,” said 
Gershom. “The Bloodsaws started off just 
after they fired at Frank — I tell you I was 
scared when the balloon began to drop ! I had 
a wonderful view up on that chimney. I could 
look right down between the trees, and I saw 
them cross the two big brooks south and go 
down into the cedars round Muskrat Hole. 
They didn’t show up on the other side, so they 
must be there. It’s a great place to hide in.” 

“We’ll root ’em out,” said Slosson. “If I 
get a squint at ’em with this they’ll chuck up 
their hands if they know what’s good for ’em.” 

“Come on,” exclaimed Hatch. “We’re 
wasting time.” 

Mr. Fairbrother looked a little dubious at 


230 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

this usurpation of his authority, but as Ren- 
shaw and the others seemed to welcome the sug- 
gestion, he moved forward ponderously. 

The wood ran open for a considerable dis- 
tance south of the menhaden factory, but as 
the ground again sank to the lower level of the 
swamp the rank scrub closed in and in places 
it seemed penetrable only for rabbits. Ger- 
shom and Tutt, however, knew all of the most 
vulnerable points and with the men puffing be- 
hind them led the way to the “wind-slashing” 
where the muskrat colony lived. 

Ten years before, the tail of a tornado had 
whipped through the swamp, leveling a swath 
among the trees several hundred yards long. 
The timber had been down so long that most 
of the branches had rotted away to mere stubs 
and the trees themselves had half sunk into 
the bog, so that they looked like a school of 
great, many-legged amphibians wallowing in 
the mucky soil. Wherever there was a small 
clear space one or two muskrat families had 
raised their roughly conical huts there, and it 
was in this tangled, obstructed stretch that the 
Portuguese were hiding. 

The constable and his party prudently halted 


THE EIGHT AT MUSKRAT HOLE 9&1 


among the cedars, and kneeling down peered 
through the branches at the fallen timber. On 
the opposite side the trees rose again in ranks 
as clean-edged as the face of a wall. A gray 
shrike was sitting in the topmost twigs of 
one of the swamp maples, and as the posse ob- 
served him he began the curious husky war- 
bling so infrequently heard. 

“That’s the first butcher-bird’s song I 
ever — ” A dig in Tutt’s ribs from Hatch’s 
elbow shut off the rest of this interesting state- 
ment, and the shrike stopped also, cocking his 
head and staring down at something in the 
wind-slashing. He was not a timid bird, but 
evidently he did not like the look of things, for 
he left his perch and sailed off out of sight. 

Renshaw pointed his forefinger at a thick 
snarl of trees. 

“I’ll bet they’re there,” he whispered. 

The four men conversed in low tones with 
their heads together. It was decided that they 
should call upon the Bloodsaws to surrender; 
if they refused, the constable and his posse 
would surround the slashing and signal for 
the rest of the posse to come up, when a gen- 
eral charge would be made. 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


Nobody had ever insinuated that lack of 
courage was one of Constable Fairbrother’s 
faults. He stepped unhesitatingly out of the 
fringe of cedars, threw back the lapel of his 
coat so that the sunlight winked on his nickel 
badge, making a capital mark of it, and said 
in his most solemn tones: 

“You three fellows better come right out of 
that. We know where you are. There’s six 
here besides me and the whole posse’ll he on 
the spot in the shake of a lamb’s tail. Better 
come right out and face what’s got to he faced 
before anybody gets hurt over it.” 

He took out his big hunting-case watch and 
pressed the lid open. 

“I’ll give you fellows three minutes to settle 
it,” he observed. 

They had, in the way of arms, one revolver 
— the constable’s — three shot-guns and Slos- 
son’s muzzle-loader. Hatch’s pitchfork and 
ludicrous bag of turnips were not to be counted 
as offensive weapons. The Bloodsaws were 
believed to have repeating rifles and plenty of 
ammunition and, moreover, the fact that they 
were hidden in the middle of a tangle of dense 
timber over which the attacking party must 



“‘TIME’S UP, FELLOWS,’ HE CRIED. ‘IF YOU RESENT THE 
LAW, THE LAW’LL HAVE TO USE FORCE.’” 




















































THE FIGHT AT MUSKRAT HOLE 233 


clamber gave them an inestimable advantage; 
but Constable Fairbrother’s manner was as 
serene as if the odds were overwhelmingly on 
his side. There was not a sound to break the 
profound quiet of Muskrat Hole as he stood 
there with the open watch in his palm, and 
when presently he closed it, the light click of 
the gold lid made more than one of the watch- 
ers in the cedars start. 

“Time’s up, fellows,” he cried. “If you re- 
sist the law, the law’ll have to use force.” 

He paused an instant, and then slipping 
back among the cedars dropped down between 
Renshaw and Hatch. 

“That bluff didn’t work exactly,” he re- 
marked. “Shall we put a ring round ’em first 
or signal the posse?” 

“Better get round ’em and keep ’em from 
breaking away,” replied Renshaw. 

“No. Call the posse,” advised Slosson in 
sepulchral tones. 

This, from the owner of the wonderful rifle, 
rather surprised the boys. But Hatch sec- 
onded it. 

“We’re not as well armed as they are,” he 
said. “And here’s these boys. ’Twouldn’t be 


234 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


right to let them into a muss-up till the posse’s 
here at least.” 

“That’s good sense,” whispered Slosson. 
“It’s all right for us men, but we got to con- 
sider the boys. Blow your whistle, chief. If 
any one of ’em makes a jump to run, I’ll wing 
him.” 

Fairbrother pulled out his nickel whistle and 
blew three long, piercing blasts that made the 
still woods ring. After an interval of a few 
moments he repeated them, and almost imme- 
diately an answer came shrilly both from the 
east and the west. The various squads had 
been converging rapidly toward this, the cen- 
ter of the frozen swamp. The nearness of the 
sounds seemed to raise Slosson’s spirits unac- 
countably and he began to laugh. 

“By gum! It would be a great joke if they 
warn’t there at all,” he chuckled. 


CHAPTER XVII 

THE END OF THE HUNT 

“Weren’t there! Think that’s a joke?” said 
the constable. “Your idea of what’s funny 
don’t hitch onto mine, Slosson.” 

“Hi! Hi! They’re bolting!” yelled Hatch, 
springing to his feet. “Get after ’em, boys.” 

There was a brittle crunch of ice breaking 
over such air-holes as form around the edges 
of “nigger-heads” and muskrat huts, and Gers- 
hom saw a dark, vague shape glide among 
the down timber and disappear. With the 
tail of his eye he caught a similar movement 
in the opposite direction. The constable 
leaped out of the cedars. 

“Halt, there!” he shouted and fired his re- 
volver into the air. 

A rifle flashed among the down timber, and 
Fairbrother staggered back, clapping his left 
hand to his other arm. In a moment there 
was the wildest confusion of shouts and gun- 
shots. 


235 


236 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“It’s only a scratch, boys,” said the consta- 
ble, as Hatch and Renshaw ran up to him. 
“Corner ’em now! But look out for your- 
selves; they’ll shoot to kill.” 

The party broke like a covey of quail, some 
running one way, some another. Gershom 
and Tutt crawled out through the bog-grass 
to the shelter of the nearest rat hut, whose 
rough apex, lightly silvered with frost, showed 
that warm little bodies were housed within. 
Both had discharged a shot at random into the 
timber, and now they reloaded as they lay be- 
hind the hut. They could hear fresh mem- 
bers of the posse running through the brush 
toward Muskrat Hole. 

“We’ve got ’em cornered all right,” said 
Tutt. 

“Yes, but who wants to shoot a man — even 
a Bloodsaw,” replied Gershom. “I don’t.” 

“Nor I,” agreed Tutt. 

“Then if they should break out this way, 
what’ll we do? They won’t be afraid to 
shoot.” 

“Aim at their legs,” said Tutt with sudden 
inspiration. “ ‘Wing ’em,’ as Slosson says. 
But I’m hoping they don’t come this way.” 


THE END OF THE HUNT 


237 


The matter was not left long in doubt. 
Some one at the southern end of the slashing, 
conceiving the idea of burning the Portuguese 
out, had fired a great heap of dead brush and 
pine branches. The flames roared up like an 
explosion and began to eat swiftly into a mass 
of fallen timber. What wind there was aided 
the fire, and everything it touched was as dry 
as a bone. Smoke and ash-flakes eddied across 
the bog. 

“That may drive ’em out, but if this smoke 
gets any thicker we won’t see ’em go,” re- 
marked Gershom. 

Just then a figure rose out of the dead tim- 
ber and darted for the cedars, head down. 
Another followed it immediately, but bore off 
somewhat more toward the boys, who recog- 
nized in it the lean, long limbs of Rufus. Both 
carried guns and the thickets for which they 
were headed seemed untenanted, but sud- 
denly from two widely separated points in the 
tall yellow reeds on the “shore” two men rose 
up. One was Charlie Hatch with a pitchfork 
in his left hand and his right, apparently 
empty, stretched out in front of him. The 
other was Slosson. At the same instant they 
called on the fugitives to halt and surrender. 


238 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


The only reply was a shot from Rufus, 
which, though it evidently passed wild, was 
too much for Slosson’s nerves. He turned 
and ran toward the boys like a deer, but be- 
fore he had covered half the distance a snag 
tripped him and he sprawled head-over-heels. 
Conceiving that Slosson was a weak link in 
the chain, Rufus swerved toward him as he 
fell and then Gershom and Tutt sprang out 
from behind the muskrat hut, prepared to do 
what they could. 

Slosson did not know that the boys were 
coming to his rescue. He grasped his rifle 
and scrambling to his feet saw Rufus almost 
upon him. In a perfect panic he leveled the 
gun and fired. The charge exploded with a 
tremendous roar and a thick cloud of smoke 
that hid both of the men from view for a mo- 
ment, and when the air cleared the boys saw 
Slosson on the ground again and Rufus dis- 
appearing into the cedars. Farther to the 
west Dolph was leaping the last of the down 
timber. Hatch had vanished; but he popped 
up from behind a stump the next instant and 
with a whirling swing of his arm he discharged 
a frozen turnip at the Portuguese. 


THE END OF THE HUNT 239 

The missile flew a good deal straighter to 
its mark than the bullet from Slosson’s rifle, 
and struck Dolph behind the ear with a rous- 
ing thud. Hatch had never made a throw 
to second base with more accuracy or force. 
Dolph’s slouch hat bounced up in the air and 
he fell as if he had been hit with a mallet, his 
gun flying ahead of him into the reeds. 

The boys saw all this happen as they ran 
toward Slosson, who still lay on his back upon 
the frozen ground, and they heard a sudden 
uproar back in the cedars that showed that 
Rufus had plunged into a hornet’s nest. 
Things were getting lively around Muskrat 
Hole, but their duty was plainly to help Slos- 
son, who might be badly wounded. They saw 
with alarm that one side of his face was pow- 
der blackened, while there was blood on his 
forehead. Had Rufus shot the poor fellow 
through the head? 

As they reached him, Slosson answered this 
by sitting up with some spryness. 

“Hullo!” he said. “Say, I thought you 
might be more of those Portuguese. Where’s 
the fellow I shot?” 

“Do you mean Rufus?” asked Gershom. 


240 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“I don’t know where he is now. He went 
into the cedars over there.” 

“You never touched him,” said Tutt. 
“What happened to your gun?” 

“Gee! I thought she’d jest kicked — she’s 
busted to smithereens!” exclaimed Slosson, 
with grieved astonishment. 

The stock was there with some tendrils of 
copper wire clinging to it and also a portion 
of the barrel, but the rest had vanished along 
with the cloud of smoke it had belched forth. 

“Gee!” repeated Slosson. “I overloaded 
her, boys. If she hadn’t busted she’d be kick- 
ing me yet, I guess. It’s lucky for Rufus 
that charge went the wrong way.” 

“Come on,” said Gershom. “Hatch has 
got one of them.” 

The frozen turnip, impelled by the ex-hall- 
player’s skillful arm, had knocked Dolph un- 
conscious, and Hatch had bound his arms be- 
hind his back before he came to. With the 
boys’ aid he pulled him to his feet and marched 
him forward on to higher ground just as Con- 
stable Fairbrother and several of the posse ap- 
peared with Rufus, whom they had captured 
in the cedars. The two brothers were hand- 


THE END OF THE HUNT 


241 


cuffed together and placed in the care of a 
guard, while the rest of the men went in pur- 
suit of Pedro. 

Slosson, who had taken one of the captured 
Bloodsaws’ rifles, was not a bit discouraged 
by the feeble showing he had made. He 
boasted as loudly as ever, but he stuck to Fair- 
brother’s side, avoiding Hatch and the two 
boys, after he had caught the grin that passed 
between them. 

“He hasn’t got the spunk of a rabbit,” said 
Tutt contemptuously, as they crept along the 
edge of Muskrat Hole. 

“He ought to have let his wife come,” said 
Gershom. “She’d show us all how to do it. 
My, but that was a peach of a shot you made, 
Charlie. I’d hate to have stopped that turnip 
with my ear.” 

“She was going a little,” laughed Hatch. 
“I was almost scared when she hit his block, 
but those fellows have skulls like the shell of 
a snapping-turtle. You couldn’t crack ’em 
with a maul. I think Pedro’s got away, boys. 
He’s the smartest of the bunch — and the 
worst.” 

The fire and smoke had spread over prac- 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


242 

tically the whole slashing, and it was evident 
that no man could be hiding there. Besides, 
several members of the posse were sure that 
they had seen Pedro sneaking off : the smoke 
had whirled in around him so densely that one 
glance was all they could get. As Hatch had 
said, Pedro was the smartest and the worst of 
the three and no one was particularly sur- 
prised at his escape, much as they regretted it. 
They thought pretty well of themselves for 
having captured two of the fugitives at the 
cost of only a couple of slight flesh wounds. 
Fairbrother posted a guard around the slash- 
ing to control the fire and the rest of the men 
returned to town with the prisoners. 

Gershom was glad that the man-hunt was 
over, as the annual hockey match between 
Clairville and Eastmarsh was to be played the 
next day. Probably a small squad would 
search the swamp for Pedro, but there was no 
necessity for his presence, and so far as he 
was concerned the excitement of the chase had 
died away. He had had plenty of it while it 
lasted. 

The Academy team was to drive over to 
Clairville so as to arrive fresh for the game, 


THE END OF THE HUNT 243 

but the spectators preferred the exhilaration 
of skating down the lake. Early in the after- 
noon Gershom and Tutt went to the Foy land- 
ing, where they were joined by a number of 
other boys, and the little company was soon 
sweeping southward over the ice, driving three 
or four pucks ahead of it. Harry Forbes, 
Tutt, Gershom, and several other Mud Hens 
had their own puck and kept more or less to 
themselves. The Zulus, who were all older 
boys and in most cases students at the Acad- 
emy, imitated their example and took the mid- 
dle of the lake. Eaton’s Preparatory had al- 
ways furnished a large contingent on these 
occasions, but to-day not a single Eatonian 
was present. The school athletic committee 
had refused to let any one go. 

“It’s rather hard on the poor Preps, being 
shut up behind a wall all the time,” said 
Harry Forbes as he checked a rush from Mor- 
gan and deftly passed the puck to Tutt. 
“They’ve got a pretty good bunch of skaters, 
I guess. A team that can trim Hillboro High 
4 to 0 can’t be just like a bunch of Chinese 
laundrymen on ice. Every fellow on Hillboro 
is old enough to wear a beard: I don’t know 
where they rake up such huskies.” 


244 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“I haven’t seen Academy practice this year,” 
said Gershom. “Since the blow-up with 
Prep., I’ve lost interest. How are they?” 

“Pretty nifty; but so’s Clairville. That’s 
their one best game. They’re pie when it 
comes to football or baseball.” 

“They’ve got a peach of a forward,” said 
Tutt. “A long-legged chap called Hendrick. 
Clever enough to play on any college team, 
they say.” 

Morgan cut at the puck, which hit the skate 
of one of the boys and caromed off into the 
middle of the Zulus, who promptly took pos- 
session of it. 

“Mud Hens! Mud Hens!” shouted Harry 
Forbes, and every member of that select so- 
ciety responded to the summons by dashing to 
the attack with him. The Zulus closed de- 
fensively around the captured puck, carrying 
it along with them as they raced forward, the 
outside ranks checking the rush of the Mud 
Hens with foot, chest and body. More than 
one boy went down with a rousing whack, but 
they were up and at it again in a moment. 

The Zulus carried the puck for nearly a mile 
before they broke, and the two societies min- 


THE END OF THE HUNT 245 

gled in a shouting, struggling mass that was 
good-natured enough except at one or two 
of the hottest points. “Toady” Lomax re- 
ceived a painful blow on the ankle, and as he 
eased up on the injured foot the other was 
kicked out from under him and his head met 
the ice with a force that made him see a bril- 
liant galaxy of stars. He got up as mad as 
a hornet that had butted against a window- 
pane, and gripped Tutt’s sweater with both 
hands. 

“You — you — I’ll lick the stuffing out of you 
for that!” he choked. “Kick me, will you!” 

He drew back one hand suddenly, but two 
of his friends caught it and held it impotent. 

“Let me go, confound you!” roared Toady. 
“He kicked me!” 

“I guess there’s others been kicked, too,” 
said one of the Zulus soothingly. “What do 
you expect in a game of shinny?” 

“I didn’t touch him,” said Tutt. “Not in- 
tentionally, anyways.” 

“Yes, you did! Let me go!” 

“Cut it out. We’re all going to the game 
and you can’t fight without the crowd,” said 
his friend. “Besides, he ain’t big enough for 
you, Toady.” 


246 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“If you can’t play a friendly game of 
shinny without getting mad you’d better skate 
by yourself,” said Harry Forbes scornfully. 

Seeing that even his fellow Zulus were of this 
opinion, the wrathful Toady contented him- 
self with a muttered vow to get square at some 
future time and the two groups separated, the 
Mud Hens bearing off the puck without op- 
position. 

“I always get the tarred end of the stick 
somehow,” observed Tutt plaintively. “I’m 
the worst fellow for luck you ever saw. I bet 
I’ll fall through an air-hole before we get 
there.” 

For once, apparently, misfortune passed 
Tutt by and he and every one else reached 
Clairville dry and on time. The whole vil- 
lage had turned out for the game and swollen 
with garments were crowding round the roped 
arena. A big bon-fire blazed on the ice for 
the benefit of chilly spectators. Pop-corn, 
peanut, and sandwich stands were scattered 
about and the odor of well-boiled coffee richly 
perfumed the air. It was a gala occasion with 
Clairville, who was confident of the superior 
prowess of her team. A few choice sporting 


THE END OF THE HUNT 247 

spirits were actually offering to bet real money 
on the home players, much to the admiration 
of the Eastmarsh visitors. 

The referee’s shrill whistle announced the 
opening of the game, and the short, sharp 
crunching of the long-bladed skates sounded 
exhilaratingly in the frosty air as the two 
teams rushed into action. Clairville had red 
sweaters and caps, while Academy wore white, 
which made them appear, at first glance, some- 
what the heavier; but as a matter of fact what 
little difference there was in weight was in 
Clairville’s favor. And they were certainly 
expert skaters. 

Eastmarsh opened the game aggressively. 
They had a wholesome respect for their op- 
ponents and had been specially coached to get 
the jump on them at the start and to box the 
clever Hendrick if they could. At the first 
clash Chadbury of Eastmarsh recovered the 
puck at mid rink and seeing that the Clair- 
ville forwards were all over the ice worked the 
puck out to the right and tried a long shot. 
Eustis, the Clairville goal-tender, saw that his 
only chance was to come out and meet the 
shot. He left the net and the flying puck 


248 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


struck his shin pad, and glancing off, hit the 
iron bar of the cage. The goal-umpire raised 
his hand and nodded his head. 

Eastmarsh supporters raised a joyous 
shout; to score a goal in less than a minute 
and a half of play was as unexpected as it was 
cheering. But their satisfaction was short- 
lived. The referee overruled the decision of 
the goal-umpire, declaring no goal, and it was 
Clairville’s turn to hurrah, while Eastmarsh 
looked glum. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

THE HOCKEY GAME 

For more than ten minutes the puck shot back 
and forth across the ice, with neither side hav- 
ing any decided advantage. Then Hendrick, 
who had been closely watched by the Acad- 
emy players, began to play the game for which 
he was famous. His checking was masterly 
and three times he made sensational runs that 
would have resulted in as many goals for his 
side if it had not been for the extremely clever 
work of Porter, the Eastmarsh goal-tender. 

Porter excelled himself at the net. His 
judgment in handling shots was perfect, and 
once he made one of the most remarkable stops 
that had ever been seen on Ten Mile Lake. 
But the brilliant Hendrick was not discour- 
aged. While Eastmarsh was still cheering 
Porter, he took the puck away from Acad- 
emy’s forwards and raced completely through 
the Academy team, landing it in the rear of 
his opponent’s cage. Quick as a flash he 

249 


250 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


passed it back to Conly, who snapped it into 
the net, and Eastmarsh had the doubtful pleas- 
ure of listening to Clairville’s noisy jubilation. 

The loss of a goal put more fire into Acad- 
emy’s play. Chadbury and Fosdike got the 
puck between them and, guarded by two play- 
ers, started down the ice. Hendrick made a* 
splendid effort to check them, but the defense 
was too strong. By good team-work Acad- 
emy carried the puck well down toward their 
opponents’ cage and there Chadbury, blocking 
a rush from one of the Clairville boys, passed 
the puck to Fosdike, who unfortunately lost 
it to the hostile cover-point before he could 
make his try for goal. The Academy skaters 
were on hand, however. They intercepted the 
cover-point’s pass to Hendrick and a hot 
scrimmage ensued. First one side and then 
the other secured the puck, but the play re- 
mained in the middle of the rink, for neither 
were able to make any appreciable advance. 

The spectators surged against the ropes and 
danced up and down with excitement, shout- 
ing, “Well checked!” or “Now you’re off!” 
according to the vicissitudes of the play. 
Presently Hendrick burst from the ruck and 


THE HOCKEY GAME 


251 


began one of his slashing runs; but Academy 
was after him like a wolf-pack. Another 
scrimmage ensued and this time Fosdike 
emerged with the puck. He made a fine run 
and before his opponents could block him sent 
the puck for the cage like a bullet. A groan 
went up from Eastmarsh as the Clairville 
goal-tender skillfully stopped the shot. Then 
the whistle blew and the first period was over. 

“What do you think? Ain’t we holding our 
own pretty well?” asked Harry Forbes of 
Looma Howard during the intermission. 

“Nothing to it,” replied Looma senten- 
tiously. 

“What do you mean? That we can beat 
’em, or they can beat us?” 

“Nothing to it, Harry,” repeated the athletic 
oracle. “Don’t you understand the English 
language?” 

“What do you make out of that?” The per- 
plexed Forbes consulted his friends dubiously. 
“Understand English, you chump!” 

“He knows how to straddle the fence, that’s 
all,” said Tutt wisely. “Looma never gives 
an opinion till it’s all over.” 

The whistle stopped any further conference 


252 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


and the spectators crowded around the ropes 
again, many of them having bags of peanuts 
or smoking cups of coffee. At the signal 
Academy instantly sprang forward like 
hounds on the trail. Chadbury had the puck 
and with Fosdike and Haines on either side 
of him he tore down the rink, the ice flying 
like white sawdust from under their ringing 
blades. Hendrick and Conly were checked 
by the outer defense. Rankin and Dowse, 
two of Clairville’s steadiest players, waited on 
the crouch, confident of their ability to block 
the play. Like every one else they expected 
a pass, but Chadbury fooled them. He made 
a feint, but retaining the puck dashed straight 
between them. 

The boldness of the action carried it 
through. Chadbury eluded both of the Clair- 
ville players, and as they bumped into each 
other helplessly he shot the puck for the cage. 
The goal-tender missed stopping it by a hair’s 
breadth and the score was tied. 

“What do you think of that?” said Ger- 
shom, his voice hoarse from shouting. 

“Nothing to it!” grinned Forbes. “I’m be- 
ginning to understand the English language.” 


THE HOCKEY GAME 


253 


Clairville had plenty of ammunition left up 
its sleeve, however. The red team seemed to 
wake up all at once to the fact that their op- 
ponents knew how to play hockey, and every 
boy began to extend himself to his utmost. 
Hendrick was a tower of strength and energy. 
He was speedier than ever; his checking was 
perfect and it required the united efforts of 
the Academy boys to block his swift dashes. 
Back and forth the play seesawed, the individ- 
ual work of the star players growing more and 
more in evidence. Almost every effort at 
team play was quickly terminated by the skill- 
ful jabbing or checking of the forward men or 
outer defense. 

The climax came when Hendrick secured 
the puck near the edge of the rink. He broke 
away from one opponent after another in a 
way that caused even Eastmarsh to shout with 
admiration, and left the field trailing behind 
him. Down he swept upon Academy’s cage 
and with a beautiful drive shot the puck by 
Porter into the net. 

From that moment it was evident that it 
was to be an uphill struggle as far as the white- 
sweatered team were concerned, though it was 


254 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


not because they had weakened. They fought 
even harder than before; but Clairville had 
struck its gait and was not to be denied. The 
game was full of incidents that kept the spec- 
tators on edge. Hendrick’s work grew more 
and more brilliant, and if Porter had not risen 
splendidly to the occasion Clairville’s score 
would have gone up by leaps and bounds. 

Porter was not infallible, however, and Hen- 
drick’s last determined effort was successful. 
Though Chadbury had forced him out to the 
side, the versatile red forward lifted the puck, 
which sailed over Chadbury’s head and into 
the net in masterly style. After that Clair- 
ville played out the remaining few minutes 
on the defensive, satisfied to hold the score as 
it was, and the game ended with a defeat of 1 
to 3 for Academy. 

The Eastmarsh boys had played their best 
and been fairly beaten. No one with an 
ounce of sporting spirit in him could feel 
sore at the outcome, and victors and losers 
left the ice with the spectators in a very 
friendly mood. Forbes and Tutt and the rest 
of the Eastmarsh boys tightened their skates 
in preparation for the home trip up the lake, 


THE HOCKEY GAME 


255 


but Gershom took his off and went ashore. He 
had a message to carry Mrs. Newell from his 
mother. He waved a good-by to his friends 
and set out on his tramp to the east end of 
Clairville., where the Newell farm lay. 

It was half-past six before he left the New- 
ells’ house, refusing to stay to supper, though 
the odor of hot brown bread and baked beans 
with plenty of molasses in them was very 
tempting. On his way to the shore he passed 
a baker’s shop with a steamy window through 
which piles of sweet bread, buns and fruit-en- 
crusted cake showed in a rich profusion not to 
be resisted. He went in and bought a dime’s 
worth of thick cookies hot from the oven, and 
munching these with reckless haste he went 
down to Chandler’s float, where he put on his 
skates. 

When the last fat cookie was disposed of 
he started up the lake with a strong, even 
stroke, dribbling a small nubble of wood along 
for practice; but the light was poor and he 
soon dropped it. It was not a particularly 
good night to be out in, for a little dry snow 
had begun to whistle out from the northeast 
and the weather was much colder than it had 


256 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


been during the afternoon. Unless the snow 
fell much more thickly, however, the trip home 
would present no unusual difficulties. 

Gershom kept in close to the east shore to 
avoid the wind and went on swiftly and easily. 
The ice gave out a kind of light which was 
sufficient to show him his course, and it was 
almost as smooth as steel until he drew near 
the long line of Haystack Rocks, jutting out 
at right angles from the shore. The going 
was rough and treacherous here, particularly 
on so dark a night. Gershom made a wide 
detour to the west, and getting the wind on 
his quarter allowed it to sweep him toward the 
middle of the lake. 

Out near the center the ice was very hard 
and black and as polished as plate glass. Ger- 
shom congratulated himself that his skates had 
been freshly ground. In spite of the wind he 
liked this course the best. It was absolutely 
unobstructed for one thing. He put his arms 
behind him, bent his shoulders forward, and 
increased the power of his stroke, the steel 
blades under his feet singing a little low note 
like the metal strings of a guitar when gently 
touched. 


THE HOCKEY GAME 


257 


All at once he was aware of something black 
immediately ahead of him. He looked up and 
swerved just in time to avoid a collision, and 
as he swept by he saw it was a man. He 
checked himself and circled back. 

“Hullo!” he laughed. “I almost ran you 
down.” 

The man, who had stopped for a moment, 
said nothing, but began to move toward the 
west shore with quick, stealthy steps. As Ger- 
shom drew nearer he paused again, fronting 
him silently and in a pose that suggested re- 
sentment. Gershom was puzzled by the fel- 
low’s peculiar actions. 

“Hullo!” he said again with less assurance. 
“Walking across the lake?*’ 

Obviously such an inane question did not 
require an answer. The man gave none and 
as Gershom glided slowly up under the force 
of his momentum, the stranger turned a little, 
warily keeping his face toward the skater. 
They were fairly close together when a thrill 
of uneasiness made GershonTs scalp tingle. 
He turned one of his skates to check himself 
and at the same moment the man made a 
quick jump forward, but his foothold on the 


258 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


glassy ice was insecure. He slipped and be- 
fore he could recover his balance Gershom was 
thirty feet away. He had seen the man’s face 
and it was almost as dark as the slouch hat 
above it. 

“It is Pedro Bloodsaw!” he said to himself. 

The fellow watched him for a few seconds 
as if he would like to run him down, but knew 
that he was no match for a skater. Then he 
turned and went on as rapidly as he could 
toward the western shore. Gershom followed 
him at a safe distance. Pedro bore a worse 
reputation than his two brothers and by virtue 
of his superior age and strength had been the 
ringleader in the lawless acts of the band. It 
had probably been his hand that had struck 
old Moffat down, and Gershom boiled with 
impotent anger at the thought of his escape 
from justice. 

He was no match for the Portuguese except 
in a race. There were no houses within hail 
and the western shore was uninhabited. Even 
if he were a champion long-distance skater he 
could not possibly spread the alarm in time 
to have Pedro headed off. Unless he, himself, 
could stop him, the Portuguese would be out 


THE HOCKEY GAME 259 

of the county before morning and Eastmarsh 
would undoubtedly never see him again. 

Skating in the rear of the black, hurrying 
figure, Gershom vainly tried to discover a way 
of capturing the fugitive. He could think of 
nothing but an actual attack, which did not 
appeal to him as feasible. His hockey club 
was so light that it was useless as a weapon, 
and if Pedro once got his strong hands on him 
the outcome would not be in doubt for a mo- 
ment. 

He struck out swiftly to the right, search- 
ing the ice for anything that might serve as 
an offensive weapon. Failing to find either 
a stick or a stone or a loose lump of ice, he 
suddenly realized that his chances would be 
much better near the shore. He could move 
nearly ten times as fast as Pedro and thus 
have a considerable time to make his search. 
He turned, therefore, due west, and skating 
with all his force, in a few minutes was close 
under the black fringe of pines. 

Back and forth he cruised, and presently 
he saw a long fence rail leaning against the 
bank. He left it there, realizing it was too 
heavy to be used handily, but presently he 


260 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


skated back to it, as a way of using it occurred 
to him. In spite of the seriousness of the sit- 
uation, his idea made him laugh. He pulled 
the rail from the shore and grasping one end 
of it pushed the other along the ice as he skated 
out to meet Pedro. 

The Portuguese had altered his course 
somewhat, but Gershom soon made out the 
black bulk of his figure as he hurried shore- 
ward. If Pedro had been armed it would 
have been the height of recklessness to attack 
him, but by some chance of which Gershom 
was ignorant the fellow had lost his gun dur- 
ing the man-hunt in the swamp, and opposed 
to a strong skater he was as helpless on the ice 
as a hen. 

Pedro heard Gershom coming swiftly down 
on him and stopped, with a fierce oath. 

“You keep away or I’ll cut your neck!” he 
shouted. 

“Will you, though?” taunted Gershom. 
“We’ll see about that.” 

With the fence rail held like a lowered lance, 
Gershom put on all his speed. Pedro hesi- 
tated and then braced himself with his feet 
apart, ready to spring aside; but his move- 


THE HOCKEY GAME 


261 


ments were not as quick as Gershom’s thrust 
with the rail. It caught him on the side of 
the foot and upset him completely. Ger- 
shom’s momentum carried him by, and ham- 
pered by the long piece of timber he saw Pe- 
dro rise before he could return to the charge, 
but the delay enabled the Portuguese to gain 
only a yard or two. 

This time he began to jump and dodge 
about, as well as he could on the slippery sur- 
face, with the idea of distracting Gershom’s 
aim, and as he danced he cursed furiously. 
He was so boiling with rage that Gershom 
grew cautious and kept off, sweeping the rail 
like a scythe at the fellow’s legs. 

Pedro leaped the timber deftly, but when 
his feet struck the ice again he slipped and 
before he could recover his balance Gershom 
wheeled quickly and swung the rail again. It 
struck the Portuguese violently in the ankle 
and he went down like a shot. Turning again, 
Gershom switched the rail back with more 
force than he was aware of. The butt end of 
it, describing a rapid arc across the ice, knocked 
heavily against Pedro’s head. The fellow 
gave a few convulsive kicks and then lay as 
limp and motionless as if he were dead. 


CHAPTER XIX 


PEDRO CAPTURED 

Gershom was really frightened for a moment 
as he knelt down and felt of Pedro’s wound. 
His hat had dropped off as he fell and the 
rail had hit the skull which fortunately was 
protected by a dense rind of wool and the bone 
underneath was probably a good deal thicker 
than a white man’s, Gershom reflected. Some 
blood trickled from a small cut, but the wound 
did not seem serious. 

Gershom crossed Pedro’s wrists behind him, 
and taking two turns of his stout skate strap 
around them knotted the leather securely. 
Pedro was stirring feebly before the job was 
finished, the ice against which his forehead 
pressed acting as a reviver. In a few minutes 
he made a more vigorous movement, and find- 
ing his arms tied, swore fiercely. 

“Now I guess you can get up,” said Ger- 
shom and he grasped Pedro’s shoulders and 
tried to raise him. 


262 


PEDRO CAPTURED 


263 


“Let me alone, you. I won’t get up,” 

snarled Pedro. 

“If you don’t I’ll tie your legs and leave 
you here till I get the constable,” retorted Ger- 
shom. “You’ll find it pretty cold lying on 
the ice on a night like this.” 

Pedro reflected upon this in silence for a 
moment. Undoubtedly he realized that such 
a piece of stubbornness on his part might re- 
sult in his freezing to death, and besides there 
was nothing to be gained by it. 

“Help me up,” he choked. 

The moment he was on his feet he made a 
vicious kick at his capturer, but Gershom had 
expected a demonstration of the kind and re- 
taliated with a slash of his hockey stick that 
caught Pedro across the shin. It was the most 
tender part of the Portuguese’s anatomy and 
the blow brought a howl of pain and rage from 
him. 

“I’ll lam you black and blue if you try any 
of that business,” said Gershom determinedly. 
“You can’t do anything to me with your hands 
tied. Walk along, now.” 

All the oaths and black looks that Pedro 
was capable of, and he possessed a wide variety 


264 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

of each, might have relieved his mind but they 
would not help him out of his predicament. 
With Gershom and the hockey stick behind 
him, he walked sullenly up the lake and across 
the snow-whitened meadows to the main street 
of Eastmarsh. He had made one last effort 
to escape when Gershom removed his skates 
while they were still on the lake, but deprived 
of the use of his hands, he had made such poor 
headway up the steep shore that Gershom had 
easily overtaken him. After that Pedro’s 
pugnacity seemed to ooze away. Pie was as 
quiet, if not as good-tempered, as a lamb when 
they reached the constable’s big house and Ger- 
shom thundered at the door. 

Gershom had been gloating over the idea 
that for once in his life Mr. Fairbrother would 
be forced to show his surprise, but he had un- 
derestimated the self-control of that worthy of- 
ficial. The constable, who expected nothing 
but a friendly caller, came to the door in shirt- 
sleeves and slippers and well flushed from a 
close companionship with the sitting-room hot- 
air stove. He recognized Gershom, but not 
the lowering Portuguese. 

“Well, what do you want?” he asked majes- 
tically. 


PEDRO CAPTURED 


265 


“I’ve brought you Pedro Bloodsaw,” said 
Gershom, unable to restrain a theatrical note 
in his voice. 

There was a slight — a very slight — pause, 
but Constable Fairbrother neither moved nor 
blinked. 

“Oh, that’s Pedro, is it?” he said. Then he 
reached behind him and from some unsuspected 
pocket drew out a pair of thin steel handcuff s. 
He stepped down on to the path and snapped 
them around Pedro’s wrists above the skate 
strap. “When I get my coat on we’ll take 
you down to the lock-up, my man,” he added. 
“There’ll be quite a family party of you.” 

He untied the skate strap and handed it to 
Gershom. 

“Keep your eye on him while I dress up,” 
he ordered. “If he moves nail him over the 
head with your club.” 

Relieved from duty presently, Gershom be- 
gan to think with enthusiasm of his postponed 
supper and hurried homeward. The consta- 
ble’s extreme dignity had greatly impressed 
him, but at the same time he was thoroughly 
angry. Fairbrother had not even asked him 
where or how he captured Pedro, and consid- 


266 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


ering that the posse had failed to get him, Ger- 
shom believed that the fact merited some ex- 
pression of interest. 

“He hasn’t got any more brains than a horse- 
shoe crab,” he said to himself. “It’s funny 
they’ll keep a chump like that in office. It’s 
just like Dr. Boyd says. They’ll keep him 
there till he’s a hundred because they’re afraid 
to hurt his feelings. If he’s constable when 
I’m twenty-one Bill and the rest of us will 
give him a good jar.” 

Gershom found that not all of Eastmarsh 
was as phlegmatic as Mr. Fairbrother and for 
a few days he was held up as a young hero, 
while the admiration and envy of the Mud 
Hens was extremely gratifying. He was 
called upon to repeat the story a hundred times, 
but with each repetition his virtuous feelings as 
a servant of justice grew a little dimmer. He 
had caused the arrest of a thief — of course 
Pedro had committed assault as well — but the 
thought of the theft was what stung Gershom’s 
conscience. 

“Bill,” he said one morning as they were 
on their way to school, “don’t you think we 
ought to take Prof. Chadwick’s weathervane 


PEDRO CAPTURED 


267 


back? It’s kind of a low-down joke to steal 
anything.” 

“Who’s stealing anything?” retorted Tutt. 
“We only took it off the barn, and hid it. I 
don’t call that stealing. At least, not ex- 
actly,” he qualified doubtfully. 

“I guess it would look the same to a judge,” 
said Gershom. “The difference seems pretty 
small to me, too. Let’s take the old thing 
hack. I’m sick of thinking about it.” 

“But we can’t peach on Carroll and the 
Prep, fellows,” objected Tutt. 

“What do you think I am! I won’t peach 
on anybody. So far as I care, Chadwick can 
think I’m the only fellow that took his old 
weathervane. I’d rather stand all the blame 
than go round feeling like a sneak any longer.” 

“You won’t stand more than half the blame,” 
said Tutt. “If you go, I go, and I say, let’s 
do it. We’ll leave Carroll and the others out 
of it. It wouldn’t do any good to say that we 
were mixed up with that bunch anyway.” 

They decided on Sunday as being a fitting 
day for the penance and in the middle of the 
afternoon when they were sure that Professor 
Chadwick was not at church they took the 


26 8 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


bronze weathervane from its hiding place and 
carried it to the professor’s house by the back 
route. A trim maid who they both knew as 
Lily Snow, the daughter of one of East- 
marsh’s least valuable citizens, opened the door 
and paralyzed them for a moment by her 
jaunty cap and beribboned apron. 

“Well, from the way you stare I’d think 
you’d never seen me before,” she said coquet- 
tishly. “Did you come to call on me or the 
professor? He’s out.” 

The idea of making a confidant of Lily was 
extremely repugnant to their dignity, but as 
the official guardian of the professor’s door she 
could hardly be disposed of out-of-hand. 
They regretted that they had lacked common 
sense enough to wrap the bronze bird in a sheet 
of newspaper. 

“If the professor’s out, perhaps we’d bet- 
ter call again,” said Tutt with visible embar- 
rassment, hugging the weathervane tucked un- 
der his coat. 

“You’re polite anyway,” laughed Lily. 
“Shall I tell him you’ve called?” 

“I guess we might as well leave it, Bill,” 
said Gershom, seeing some advantages in 


PEDRO CAPTURED 


269 


avoiding an interview with the professor. He 
attacked Tutt’s coat and drew the weather- 
vane from under his resisting arm. Lily’s 
eyes stuck out with astonishment. 

“You didn’t!” she gasped. “My!” 

“Yes, we did, Lily; but don’t you say any- 
thing about it,” said Gershom. “We just 
borrowed it for a while. See!” 

Lily regarded the offenders with mingled 
interest and respect. 

“You’ve got lots of nerve to do a thing like 
that,” she said. “Perhaps the professor wasn’t 
crazy. My! We thought it was some of our 
boys. Say, there’s some fierce cut-ups here 
and don’t you forget it.” 

There was a note of pride in Lily’s voice that 
irritated Tutt in spite of his virtuous resolu- 
tions. 

“I guess the Prep, fellows can’t show us any- 
thing,” he asserted. “But don’t you blat on 
us, Lily. We don’t want to get any other 
fellows into trouble and if this thing spreads 
all over town it might get people talking. 
That’s what made the athletic committee shut 
down on the games, a lot of silly talk about 
how some fellows were cutting up.” 


270 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


Lily nodded understandingly. “You can 
trust me,” she said, really believing that she was 
not over-stating the case. “Want me to slip 
it into the professor’s study?” 

“With a note,” said Gershom. “We can’t 
square the thing up unless we apologize and 
give our names.” 

He produced a sheet of paper brought for 
the occasion and using the door as a desk with 
frequent pauses wrote a few lines, which he 
handed to Tutt for approval. Bill read them 
and nodded gloomily. 

“That pins the bug on us all right,” he 
conceded. “Mind you don’t let this get out, 
Lily.” 

Lily assured them that she would be as dumb 
as an Eastmarsh clam and they took their de- 
parture. 

“Of course everybody’ll know all about it 
by to-morrow morning,” said Tutt. “Lily’s 
tongue waggles like a pup’s tail.” 

“It’s done, at any rate,” replied Gershom 
philosophically. “Let’s go over to Selectman 
Peters’ house and tell him about our decoys. 
Maybe he can fix it so that we can get them 
back.” 


PEDRO CAPTURED 


£71 


Peters was a genial honest old farmer whose 
common sense was not fettered by any official 
red tape. He listened to their story smilingly 
and then told them that they could leave the 
matter in his hands. Cheered up by the hope 
of recovering their decoys, the boys went home 
well satisfied with themselves. 

“See you to-morrow,” said Tutt as he turned 
into his own driveway. “If I don’t die before 
morning. I feel like those good little Sunday- 
school fellows who don’t live long.” 

“You don’t need to worry,” grinned Ger- 
shom. “So long.” 

Almost at the gate of the Foy farm he met 
the owner of the weathervane himself, taking a 
constitutional. He was a big, vigorous-look- 
ing man who might well have been an athlete 
in his younger days, and though he did not 
know Gershom, he nodded to him in the 
friendly country fashion, remarking that it 
had been a splendid day. 

Gershom liked his frank manner and sud- 
denly decided to make a clean breast of it to 
the professor. 

“I’ve just called at your house, Professor 
Chadwick,” he said, reddening. “I left a note 


m BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

for you and a — the weathervane that I took 
from your barn.” 

The professor stopped short and looked him 
up and down curiously, switching at a clump of 
dead ragweed with his cane. 

“So you took it, did you!” he remarked, as 
if he were a little surprised. “What is your 
name?” 

Gershom told him. The Foy was difficult 
to utter: it seemed somehow to drag his father 
into the matter. 

“What did you take it for?” 

This was harder yet to answer, but Gershom 
managed to blurt out the truth. Professor 
Chadwick listened silently to this evidence of 
his unpopularity. He even smiled slightly 
once or twice and Gershom felt with shame that 
the man was not at all like the portrait that 
the Prep, fellows had sketched, or as he him- 
self had conceived him. There was something 
so big and wholesome about the professor that 
the stealing of the weathervane began to ap- 
pear a very shabby trick. His explanations 
stumbled and he paused, unable to conquer his 
embarrassment. 

“I see,” said Professor Chadwick, smiling 


PEDRO CAPTURED 


273 


openly now. “I have been a boy myself and 
I know how all of you must have been feeling 
toward the committee. It was hard to have 
your games discontinued, and I was very sorry 
to be one of those to stop them, but the feeling 
between the two schools was taking an un- 
sportsmanlike turn. I know from experience 
how that is too, and I know that it can be cor- 
rected and how much better the games will be 
when partisan spirit is clean and manly instead 
of bitter. Taking my weathervane is a case 
in point. You are properly ashamed of that. 
It was a natural expression of just that same 
spirit which has been creeping into the schools’ 
relations. You can’t expect to play a dirty 
game and have clean thoughts about your op- 
ponents when you are off the field. 

“I don’t think that either of the schools has 
any really dirty players. There are plenty of 
hot-headed ones, just as there always have been 
and always will be, but I am sure that the boys 
see their mistake now and mean to do better. 
Several of them have had a talk with me re- 
cently. They came individually and of their 
own accord just as you did. We — that is, the 
committee — have decided to reconsider the 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

matter of the spring games and I believe that 
with the help of all the fellows we can have our 
baseball matches and sailing races conducted 
in the proper, manly way. Don’t you think 
so?” 

“Yes, I do, sir,” replied Gershom. 

“I am going to ask the boys to a talk at my 
house next Saturday, and I should like to see 
you there, Foy. Arthur Howard can bring 
whom he likes. I shall trust his judgment in 
the matter of selecting representatives from 
the Academy. Good-by, and next time when 
you think you have a grudge against any one 
go and tell him so and perhaps you will find 
him ready to meet you half way in clearing up 
the trouble. 


CHAPTER XX 


THE HONOR CORPS ESTABLISHED 

“Well, that’s pretty nice of Chadwick, I must 
say,” commented Looma Howard, when Ger- 
shom told him the news the next day. “I’ll 
draw up the list to-night and I’ll see that every 
man goes if I have to haul him there by the 
scruff of his neck. I guess they won’t need 
that, though. Things have been standing as 
still as bumps on logs. Hockey’s a rotten 
farce this season and when I began to work 
round among the baseball crowd the other day, 
what do you think I got! The icy eye; that’s 
what. ‘What’s the good of thinking about 
baseball if we can’t play Eaton!’ That’s the 
kind of talk they put up. You might as well 
expect enthusiasm at Harvard and Yale if 
they knew they couldn’t meet. But I’ll have 
’em lined up in Johnny Chadwick’s little parlor 
next Saturday.” 

“How about asking Bill Tutt and Harry 

v 275 


276 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

Forbes?” said Gershom, loyal to his partic- 
ular friends. 

Looma shook his head. 

“No, it won’t do,” he said decisively. 
“They’re not in Academy yet and we can’t 
crowd Johnny’s parlor with a lot of outsiders. 
This is going to be a business meeting. Spec- 
tators needn’t apply. Of course you’ll come, 
I suppose,” he added rather dubiously. 

“You can bet your last cent on that,” re- 
plied Gershom firmly. 

The depressing influence of the athletic ban 
had affected all the younger element of East- 
marsh. The boys met less often after school 
and no skating parties had been held at Ten 
Mile Lake. Eaton was not permitted to visit 
the lake, and the impromptu races that had 
formerly added such a zest to this winter sport 
had been lacking. 

Charlie Hatch had repaired and improved 
“The Skate” and she had carried several loads 
to Clairville since her initial trip. The winter 
had been much too cold for ball practice. Ger- 
shom had boxed pretty regularly with Hatch 
and they had spent many evenings discussing 
inside-baseball and carving decoys. Mindful 


THE HONOR CORPS 


m 

of his promise to his father, Gershom had done 
a good deal of wood-cutting and he had studied 
diligently as well. On the whole, it had been 
a busy winter, but the fact that the two schools 
were no longer athletic rivals had hung like a 
pall over his spirits and now the possibility of 
a change for the better made him feel corre- 
spondingly elated. 

At three o’clock on Saturday afternoon he 
presented himself at the professor’s house, and 
was ushered into the library where a number 
of boys were already assembled. Collingwood 
was one of them. He instantly recognized 
Gershom and nodded with a half malicious, 
half friendly smile. As Professor Chadwick 
moved about among his guests, greeting those 
he knew and being introduced to others, the 
continual movement of the crowd finally 
brought Gershom and Collingwood together. 

“Hullo, bumpkin,” grinned the Eaton half- 
back. 

“Hullo, mucker,” replied Gershom with an 
answering grin. 

“How is it you’re here?” asked Colling- 
wood. “You’re not in Academy yet, are 
you?” 


278 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“Haven’t you heard? I’m to be the star 
back next year. You’ll have to look out for 
your laurels. I’m learning to slug a little my- 
self.” 

Collingwood’s eyes flashed, but he laughed 
with easy self-assurance as he looked Gershom 
up and down. He saw a tall, very well made 
figure and a square jaw that was quite as de- 
termined as his own. Perhaps he remembered 
how Gershom, outclassed and beaten, had yet 
managed to knock him off his feet. 

“I’ll be ready for you, bumpkin,” he said. 
“But this is a peace conference. We mustn’t 
let Johnny Chadwick hear us talking war.” 

The boys had all assembled and Professor 
Chadwick opened the meeting without further 
delay or formality. They all understood, he 
said, why he had called them together, and he 
was sure that all were equally desirous of re- 
establishing the former relationship between 
the schools. He and every other member of 
the athletic committee had been very sorry to 
break that relationship, but the duty had been 
forced upon them. Earnest, friendly rivalry 
was an excellent thing. He believed in it 
thoroughly and in the benefit to be derived 


THE HONOR CORPS 


919 


from every form of properly conducted ath- 
letics, but when baseball and football became 
of such paramount importance among the boys 
that defeat meant bitterness and unworthy 
anger and victory was a goal to be reached by 
foul means if fair ones could not win, then such 
contests were utterly opposed to the end and 
aim of schools like Eaton and Academy. 

“The physical side of athletics is only one 
side,” he said. “If they do not inculcate self- 
restraint, a generous spirit toward all — a true 
manliness — your authorities consider that they 
have failed to justify themselves and are there- 
fore by no means indispensable requirements 
of school life. You know this well enough 
without my saying it, but I must warn you 
that if you do not conduct yourselves accord- 
ingly very serious restrictions will be put upon 
all your games. Public opinion is quite 
against you now. Mr. Fairbrother has just 
informed me that he will not tolerate any more 
rowdyism. You know there has been a good 
deal of it in the past both on and off the athletic 
fields. He hoped that the committee would 
put an interdict on all sports between the 
schools for at least a year. 


280 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


“It seems to me, however, that you ought to 
learn your lesson by spring and we — the com- 
mittee — are willing to give you the benefit of 
the doubt if you will promise to do your very 
best to put a better spirit in your sports. Each 
of you has more or less influence with the 
schools; together you can accomplish a great 
deal. Don’t you agree with me, Howard?” 

“Yes, sir, I think we can, and I am sure we 
shall all try to. I don’t really know why there 
should be any ill-feeling between the schools, 
anyway.” 

“Nor I,” said Professor Chadwick. “I can’t 
believe that because some of you have richer 
fathers and more money to spend than the 
Academy boys you would be such unutterable 
snobs as to imagine that you are in any way 
superior to them. And I can’t believe that 
Academy boys consider themselves any more 
manly or more American because they attend a 
public school instead of a private one.” 

There was an emphasis in Professor Chad- 
wick’s voice that pointed these words and drove 
them home so suddenly that more than one boy 
moved uneasily and dropped his eyes for a 
moment. The speaker paused and surveyed 


THE HONOR CORPS 


281 


his listeners with a look that was half stern, half 
reproachful; but when he resumed his expres- 
sion gradually changed to one less accusing. 

“Just remember, boys, that you all stand on 
the same level, that the world holds the same 
opportunities for all, and that neither you nor 
I can pick out the one among you who shall 
prove to be the biggest and best — the man 
whom we shall be proud to have known. Now 
I shall not preach any more or suggest any- 
thing more, and while Lily brings in the tea 
or whatever it is, talk the matter over among 
yourselves. I’ve constituted you my Honor 
Corps and I have every faith in your ability 
to bring a new, clean spirit into our school 
games.” 

“Three cheers for Professor Chadwick!” 
cried Looma Howard, and they were given 
with a vim that made the study ring again. 
“Thank you,” added Looma, as drolly grave 
as ever, bowing to their host. “The Honor 
Corps salute you.” 

The name instantly recommended itself to 
the boys, who repeated it with humorous by- 
play, but at the same time with little under- 
notes of pride and earnestness that promised 


282 BOYS OF EASTMARSH 

well for its future reputation. Before they 
quite realized it, Eaton and Academy were 
shaking hands and talking and laughing to- 
gether with a feeling of comradeship that the 
two schools had never expressed before: the 
thought that interests so important to all de- 
pended upon their cooperation seemed to re- 
move petty barriers and silly jealousies at one 
stroke. By the time Lily had arranged the 
tea and chocolate and various plates of cake 
and sandwiches, Griscom was chatting with 
Osborn as if they were old chums and the two 
managers were in close consultation, while the 
most friendly understanding was everywhere 
apparent. 

It was decided, of course, that the Honor 
Corps should begin its work at once; that 
school meetings should be arranged and the 
fellows informed that the corps stood firmly 
with the athletic committee for a reform, a 
more generous sportsmanship, and that they — 
the corps included the most prominent athletes 
of both schools — would refuse to take part in 
any games if the friendly spirit were not lived 
up to. This plan was proposed by Looma 
Howard and though some felt that it was de- 


THE HONOR CORPS 


283 

cidedly radical, the Academy manager con- 
vinced them that there was no danger of being 
“shelved/’ as some expressed it, since it was 
impossible for the schools to fill their places 
satisfactorily. 

“It’s too big a handicap,” said Looma. 
“If we take away the munitions of war there 
can’t be any fighting; the fellows will simply 
surrender unconditionally.” 

On the whole, Looma scored a triumph for 
Academy. His shrewd, careful yet energetic 
character — the pessimistic side was not in evi- 
dence for the moment — grasped the situation 
at once and he was a more plausible arguer 
than any one else. There was a quiet force 
about him and at the same time an utter ab- 
sence of egotism that pleased the Eaton boys, 
and he made so good an impression upon them 
that much to his own surprise he was elected 
chairman of the Honor Corps. There was not 
a dissenting voice, and it would be hard to say 
which was more gratified, Howard or his 
friends. 

The boys made a clean sweep of everything 
eatable and drinkable and with another cheer 
for Professor Chadwick the meeting was closed 


284 


BOYS OF EASTMARSH 


and good-bys said and the two groups sep- 
arated, very well pleased with the results of 
the afternoon. The winter contests were lost, 
but neither hockey nor skating were as impor- 
tant as baseball, or football, or the spring sail- 
ing races, and so long as the ban had been lifted 
from these the boys felt that they could do very 
well without the lesser sports. 

Charlie Hatch was delighted with the news. 
“Hockey! Pouf, what’s that!” he said with 
fine contempt. “I’d rather see two scrub teams 
play a scratch game of ball than watch the best 
hockey match in Canada. I’m only sorry that 
you can’t play this spring, but when you are 
ready I’ll guarantee I’ll have you come up in 
good shape with a bid for catcher’s place that 
will be pretty hard to raise, and as for batting, 
well, there you’re at home, and I miss my guess 
if you ain’t called ‘Home-run Foy’ one of 
these May days.” 

This was the first time that Hatch had ever 
let himself go so far as to pay his pupil a direct 
compliment, and Gershom was immensely 
pleased, but he was not so elated as he would 
have been some months before. The winter 
had taught him a new humility, and a sense of 


THE HQNOR CORPS 


285 


manliness that had displaced some of the old 
boyish conceit. 

“I hope I’ll be able to make the team, but it 
won’t be any cinch,” he said. “Dan Kings- 
bury graduates this spring, which leaves catch- 
er’s place open and there are at least three or 
four who will try to fill it, so you see I shall 
have to show something pretty good to win. 
They won’t take me on just because I’m good 
at the bat and, besides, that would be hard to 
prove unless I could get into some of the 
games.” 

“We’ll find a way to show our goods,” said 
Hatch confidently. “When one has got the 
real stuff, I don’t care whether he’s a man or 
a boy, or whether it’s ball or business, it’s bound 
to be recognized.” 


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